THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


cHt,    &AXAM 


MARCHING  MEN 


By  the  same  Author 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THEJEGG 
POOR  WHITE 
WLNESBURG,  OHIO 
MID-AMERICAN  CHANTS 
MARCHING  MEN 
WINDY  McPHERSON'S  SON 


MARCHING 

MEN 

BY 

SHERWOOD  ANDERSON 


NEW  YORK 

B.  W.  HUEBSCH,  INC. 
MCMXXI 


Copyright,  1917, 
BY  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 


TO 
AMERICAN  WORKINGMEN 


MARCHING  MEN 


MARCHING   MEN 

BOOK  I 

CHAPTER   I 

UNCLE  CHARLIE  WHEELER  stamped  on  the  steps 
before  Nance  McGregor's  bake-shop  on  the  Main 
Street  of  the  town  of  Coal  Creek  Pennsylvania 
and  then  went  quickly  inside.  Something  pleased 
him  and  as  he  stood  before  the  counter  in-  the  shop 
he  laughed  and  whistled  softly.  With  a  wink  at  the 
Reverend  Minot  Weeks  who  stood  by  the  door  lead 
ing  to  the  street,  he  tapped  with  his  knuckles  on  the 
showcase. 

"It  has,"  he  said,  waving  attention  to  the  boy, 
who  was  making  a  mess  of  the  effort  to  arrange 
Uncle  Charlie's  loaf  into  a  neat  package,  "a  pretty 
name.  They  call  it  Norman — Norman  McGregor." 
Uncle  Charlie  laughed  heartily  and  again  stamped 
upon  the  floor.  Putting  his  finger  to  his  forehead 
to  suggest  deep  thought,  he  turned  to  the  min 
ister.  "I  am  going  to  change  all  that,"  he  said. 

9 


io  MARCHING  MEN 

"Norman  indeed!  I  shall  give  him  a  name  that 
will  stick!  Norman!  Too  soft,  too  soft  and  deli 
cate  for  Coal  Creek,  eh?  It  shall  be  rechristened. 
You  and  I  will  be  Adam  and  Eve  in  the  garden 
naming  things.  We  will  call  it  Beaut — Our  Beauti 
ful  One — Beaut  McGregor." 

The  Reverend  Minot  Weeks  also  laughed.  He 
thrust  four  fingers  of  each  hand  into  the  pockets  of 
his  trousers,  letting  the  extended  thumbs  lie  along 
the  swelling  waist  line.  From  the  front  the  thumbs 
looked  like  two  tiny  boats  on  the  horizon  of  a  trou 
bled  sea.  They  bobbed  and  jumped  about  on  the 
rolling  shaking  paunch,  appearing  and  disappearing 
as  laughter  shook  him.  The  Reverend  Minot 
Weeks  went  out  at  the  door  ahead  of  Uncle  Charlie, 
still  laughing.  One  fancied  that  he  would  go  along 
the  street  from  store  to  store  telling  the  tale  of  the 
christening  and  laughing  again.  The  tall  boy  could 
imagine  the  details  of  the  story. 

It  was  an  ill  day  for  births  in  Coal  Creek,  even 
for  the  birth  of  one  of  Uncle  Charlie's  inspirations. 
Snow  lay  piled  along  the  sidewalks  and  in  the  gut 
ters  of  Main  Street — black  snow,  sordid  with  the 
gathered  grime  of  human  endeavour  that  went  on 
day  and  night  in  the  bowels  of  the  hills.  Through 
the  soiled  snow  walked  miners,  stumbling  along 
silently  and  with  blackened  faces.  In  their  bare 
hands  they  carried  dinner  pails. 

The  McGregor  boy,  tall  and  awkward,  and  with 


MARCHING  MEN  n 

a  towering  nose,  great  hippopotamus-like  mouth  and 
fiery  red  hair,  followed  Uncle  Charlie,  Republican 
politician,  postmaster  and  village  wit  to  the  door 
and  looked  after  him  as  with  the  loaf  of  bread 
under  his  arm  he  hurried  along  the  street.  Be 
hind  the  politician  went  the  minister  still  enjoying 
the  scene  in  the  bakery.  He  was  preening  himself 
on  his  nearness  to  life  in  the  mining  town.  "Did 
not  Christ  himself  laugh,  eat  and  drink  with  pub 
licans  and  sinners?"  he  thought,  as  he  waddled 
through  the  snow.  The  eyes  of  the  McGregor  boy, 
as  they  followed  the  two  departing  figures,  and 
later,  as  he  stood  in  the  door  of  the  bake-shop 
watching  the  struggling  miners,  glistened  with 
hatred.  It  was  the  quality  of  intense  hatred  for  his 
fellows  in  the  black  hole  between  the  Pennsylvania 
hills  that  marked  the  boy  and  made  him  stand  forth 
among  his  fellows. 

In  a  country  of  so  many  varied  climates  and 
occupations  as  America  it  is  absurd  to  talk  of  an 
American  type.  The  country  is  like  a  vast  disor 
ganised  undisciplined  army,  leaderless,  uninspired, 
going  in  route-step  along  the  road  to  they  know 
not  what  end.  In  the  prairie  towns  of  the  West  and 
the  river  towns  of  the  South  from  which  have  come 
so  many  of  our  writing  men,  the  citizens  swagger 
through  life.  Drunken  old  reprobates  lie  in  the 
shade  by  the  river's  edge  or  wander  through  the 
streets  of  a  corn  shipping  village  of  a  Saturday 


12  MARCHING  MEN 

evening  with  grins  on  their  faces.  Some  touch  of 
nature,  a  sweet  undercurrent  of  life,  stays  alive  in 
them  and  is  handed  down  to  those  who  write  of 
them,  and  the.  most  worthless  man  that  walks  the 
streets-  of  an  Ohio  or  Iowa  town  may  be  the  father 
of  an  epigram  that  colours  all  the  life  of  the  men 
about  him.  In  a  mining  town  or  deep  in  the  entrails 
of  one  of  our'  cities  life  is  different.  There  the  dis 
order  and  aimlessness  of  our  American  lives  be 
comes  a  crime  for  which  men  pay  heavily.  Losing 
step  with  one  another,  men  lose  also  a  sense  of  their 
own  individuality  so  that  a  thousand  of  them  may 
be  driven  in  a  disorderly  mass  in  at  the  door  of  a 
Chicago  factory  morning  after  morning  and  year 
after  year  with  never  an  epigram  from  the  lips  of 
one  of  them. 

In  Coal  Creek  when  men  got  drunk  they  stag 
gered  in  silence  through  the  street.  Did  one  of 
them,  in  a  moment  of  stupid  animal  sportiveness, 
execute  a  clumsy  dance  upon  the  barroom  floor,  his 
fellow-labourers  looked  at  him  dumbly,  or  turning 
away  left  him  to  finish  without  witnesses  his  clumsy 
hilarity. 

Standing  in  the  doorway  and  looking  up  and 
down  the  bleak  village  street,  some  dim  realisation 
of  the  disorganised  ineffectiveness  of  life  as  he 
knew  it  came  into  the  mind  of  the  McGregor  boy. 
It  seemed  to  him  right  and  natural  that  he  should 
hate  men.  With  a  sneer  on  his  lips,  he  thought  of 


MARCHING  MEN  13 

Barney  Butterlips,  the  town  socialist,  who  was  for 
ever  talking  of  a  day  coming1  when  men  would 
march  shoulder  to  shoulder  and  life  in  Coal  Creek, 
life  everywhere,  should  cease  being  aimless  and  be 
come  definite  and  full  of  meaning. 

"They  will  never  do  that  and  who  wants  them 
to,"  mused  the  McGregor  boy.  A  blast  of  wind 
bearing  snow  beat  upon  him  and  he  turned  into  the 
shop  and  slammed  the  door  behind  him.  Another 
thought  stirred  in  his  head  and  brought  a  flush  to 
his  cheeks.  He  turned  and  stood  in  the  silence  of 
the  empty  shop  shaking  with  emotion.  "If  I  could 
form  the  men  of  this  place  into  an  army  I  would 
lead  them  to  the  mouth  of  the  old  Shumway  cut  and 
push  them  in,"  he  threatened,  shaking  his  fist  to 
ward  the  door.  "I  would  stand  aside  and  see  the 
whole  town  struggle  and  drown  in  the  black  water 
as  untouched  as  though  I  watched  the  drowning  of 
a  litter  of  dirty  little  kittens." 

The  next  morning  when  Beaut  McGregor  pushed 
his  baker's  cart  along  the  street  and  began  climbing 
the  hill  toward  the  miners'  cottages,  he  went,  not  as 
Norman  McGregor,  the  town  baker  boy,  only  prod 
uct  of  the  loins  of  Cracked  McGregor  of  Coal 
Creek,  but  as  a  personage,  a  being,  the  object  of  an 
art.  The  name  given  him  by  Uncle  Charlie  Wheeler 
had  made  him  a  marked  man.  He  was  as  the  hero 
of  a  popular  romance,  galvanised  into  life  and  strid- 


14  MARCHING  MEN 

ing  in  the  flesh  before  the  people.  Men  looked  at 
him  with  new  interest,  inventorying1  anew  the  huge 
mouth  and  nose  and  the  flaming  hair.  The  bar 
tender,  sweeping  the  snow  from  before  the  door  of 
the  saloon,  shouted  at  him.  "Hey,  Norman!"  he 
called.  "Sweet  Norman!  Norman  is  too  pretty  a 
name.  Beaut  is  the  name  for  you !  Oh  you  Beaut !" 

The  tall  boy  pushed  the  cart  silently  along  the 
street  Again  he  hated  Coal  Creek.  He  hated  the 
bakery  and  the  bakery  cart.  With  a  burning  satis 
fying  hate  he  hated  Uncle  Charlie  Wheeler  and  the 
Reverend  Minot  Weeks.  "Fat  old  fools,"  he  mut 
tered  as  he  shook  the  snow  off  his  hat  and  paused  to 
breathe  in  the  struggle  up  the  hill.  He  had  some 
thing  new  to  hate.  He  hated  his  own  name.  It  did 
sound  ridiculous.  He  had  thought  before  that  there 
was  something  fancy  and  pretentious  about  it.  It 
did  not  fit  a  bakery  cart  boy.  He  wished  it  might 
have  been  plain  John  or  Jim  or  Fred.  A  quiver  of 
irritation  at  his  mother  passed  through  him.  "She 
might  have  used  more  sense,"  he  muttered. 

And  then  the  thought  came  to  him  that  his  father 
might  have  chosen  the  name.  That  checked  his 
flight  toward  universal  hatred  and  he  began  pushing 
the  cart  forward  again,  a  more  genial  current  of 
thought  running  through  his  mind.  The  tall  boy 
loved  the  memory  of  his  father,  "Cracked  Mc 
Gregor."  "They  called  him  'Cracked'  until  that 
became  his  name,"  he  thought.  "Now  they  are  at 


MARCHING  MEN  15 

me."  The  thought  renewed  a  feeling  of  fellowship 
between  himself  and  his  dead  father — it  softened 
him.  When  he  reached  the  first  of  the  bleak  miners' 
houses  a  smile  played  about  the  corners  of  his  huge 
mouth. 

In  his  day  Cracked  McGregor  had  not  borne  a 
good  reputation  in  Coal  Creek.  He  was  a  tall 
silent  man  with  something  morose  and  dangerous 
about  him.  He  inspired  fear  born  of  hatred.  In 
the  mines  he  worked  silently  and  with  fiery  energy, 
hating  his  fellow  miners  among  whom  he  was 
thought  to  be  "a  bit  off  his  head."  They  it  was  who 
named  him  "Cracked"  McGregor  and  they  avoided 
him  while  subscribing  to  the  common  opinion  that 
he  was  the  best  miner  in  the  district.  Like  his  fel 
low  workers  he  occasionally  got  drunk.  When  he 
went  into  the  saloon  where  other  men  stood  in 
groups  buying  drinks  for  each  other  he  bought  only 
for  himself.  Once  a  stranger,  a  fat  man  who  sold 
liquor  for  a  wholesale  house,  approached  and 
slapped  him  on  the  back.  "Come,  cheer  up  and 
have  a  drink  with  me,"  he  said.  Cracked  Mc 
Gregor  turned  and  knocked  the  stranger  to  the 
floor.  When  the  fat  man  was  down  he  kicked  him 
and  glared  at  the  crowd  in  the  room.  Then  he 
walked  slowly  out  at  the  door  staring  around  and 
hoping  some  one  would  interfere. 

In  his  house  also  Cracked  McGregor  was  silent. 
When  he  spoke  at  all  he  spoke  kindly  and  looked 


16  MARCHING  MEN 

into  the  eyes  of  his  wife  with  an  eager  expectant 
air.  To  his  red-haired  son  he  seemed  to  be  forever 
pouring  forth  a  kind  of  dumb  affection.  Taking 
the  boy  in  his  arms  he  sat  for  hours  rocking  back 
and  forth  and  saying  nothing.  When  the  boy  was 
ill  or  troubled  by  strange  dreams  at  night  the  feel  of 
his  father's  arms  about  him  quieted  him.  In  his 
arms  the  boy  went  to  sleep  happily.  In  the  mind  of 
the  father  there  was  a  single  recurring  thought, 
"We  have  but  the  one  bairn,  we'll  not  put  him  into 
the  hole  in  the  ground,"  he  said,  looking  eagerly 
to  the  mother  for  approval. 

Twice  had  Cracked  McGregor  walked  with  his 
son  on  a  Sunday  afternoon.  Taking  the  lad  by  the 
hand  the  miner  went  up  the  face  of  the  hill,  past  the 
last  of  the  miners'  houses,  through  the  grove  of 
pine  trees  at  the  summit  and  on  over  the  hill  into 
sight  of  a  wide  valley  on  the  farther  side.  When 
he  walked  he  twisted  his  head  far  to  one  side  like 
one  listening.  A  falling  timber  in  the  mines  had 
given  him  a  deformed  shoulder  and  left  a  great 
scar  on  his  face,  partly  covered  by  a  red  beard  filled 
with  coal  dust.  The  blow  that  had  deformed  his 
shoulder  had  clouded  his  mind.  He  muttered  as  he 
walked  along  the  road  and  talked  to  himself  like  an 
old  man. 

The  red-haired  boy  ran  beside  his  father  happily. 
He  did  not  see  the  smiles  on  the  faces  of  the  miners, 
who  came  down  the  hill  and  stopped  to  look  at  the 


MARCHING  MEN  17 

odd  pair.  The  miners  went  on  down  the  road  to 
sit  in  front  of  the  stores  on  Main  Street,  their  day 
brightened  by  the  memory  of  the  hurrying  Mc 
Gregors.  They  had  a  remark  they  tossed  about. 
"Nance  McGregor  should  not  have  looked  at  her 
man  when  she  conceived,"  they  said. 

Up  the  face  of  the  hill  climbed  the  McGregors. 
In  the  mind  of  the  boy  a  thousand  questions  wanted 
answering.  Looking  at  the  silent  gloomy  face  of 
his  father,  he  choked  back  the  questions  rising  in 
his  throat,  saving  them  for  the  quiet  hour  with  his 
mother  when  Cracked  McGregor  was  gone  to  the 
mine.  He  wanted  to  know  of  the  boyhood  of  his 
father,  of  the  life  in  the  mine,  of  the  birds  that  flew 
overhead  and  why  they  wheeled  and  flew  in  great 
ovals  in  the  sky.  He  looked  at  the  fallen  trees  in 
the  woods  and  wondered  what  made  them  fall  and 
whether  the  others  would  presently  fall  in  their 
turn. 

Over  the  hill  went  the  silent  pair  and  through 
the  pinewood  to  an  eminence  half  way  down  the 
farther.side.  When  the  boy  saw  the  valley  lying  so 
green-  and  broad  and  fruitful  at  their  feet  he  thought 
it  the  most  wonderful  sight  in  the  world.  He  was 
not  surprised  that  his  father  had  brought  him  there. 
Sitting  on  the  ground  he  opened  and  closed  his 
eyes,  his  soul  stirred  by  the  beauty  of  the  scene  that 
lay  before  them. 

On  the  hillside  Cracked  McGregor  went  through 


i8  MARCHING  MEN 

a  kind  of  ceremony.  Sitting  upon  a  log  he  made  a 
telescope  of  his  hands  and  looked  over  the  valley 
inch  by  inch  like  one  seeking  something  lost.  For 
ten  minutes  he  would  look  intently  at  a  clump  of 
trees  or  a  spot  in  the  river  running  through  the  val 
ley  where  it  broadened  and  where  the  water  rough 
ened  by  the  wind  glistened  in  the  sun.  A  smile 
lurked  in  the  corners  of  his  mouth,  he  rubbed  his 
hands  together,  he  muttered  incoherent  words  and 
bits  of  sentences,  once  he  broke  forth  into  a  low 
droning  song. 

On  the  first  morning,  when  the  boy  sat  on  the 
hillside  with  his  father,  it  was  spring  and  the  land 
was  vividly  green.  Lambs  played  in  the  fields; 
birds  sang  their  mating  songs;  in  the  air,  on  the 
earth  and  in  the  water  of  the  flowing  river  it  was  a 
time  of  new  life.  Below,  the  flat  valley  of  green 
fields  was  patched  and  spotted  with  brown  new- 
turned  earth.  The  cattle  walking  with  bowed  heads, 
eating  the  sweet  grass,  the  farmhouses  with  red 
barns,  the  pungent  smell  of  the  new  ground,  fired 
his  mind  and  awoke  the  sleeping  sense  of  beauty  in 
the  boy.  He  sat  upon  the  log  drunk  with  happiness 
that  the  world  in  which  he  lived  could  be  so  beauti 
ful.  In  his  bed  at  night  he  dreamed  of  the  valley, 
confounding  it  with  the  old  Bible  tale  of  the  Gar 
den  of  Eden,  told  him  by  his  mother.  He  dreamed 
that  he  and  his  mother  went  over  the  hill  and  down 
toward  the  valley  but  that  his  father,  wearing  a 


MARCHING  MEN  19 

long  white  robe  and  with  his  red  hair  blowing  in 
the  wind,  stood  upon  the  hillside  swinging  a  long 
sword  blazing  with  fire  and  drove  them  back. 

When  the  boy  went  again  over  the  hill  it  was  Oc 
tober  and  a  cold  wind  blew  down  the  hill  into  his 
face.  In  the  woods  golden  brown  leaves  ran  about 
like  frightened  little  animals  and  golden-brown 
were  the  leaves  on  the  trees  about  the  farmhouses 
and  golden-brown  the  corn  standing  shocked  in  the 
fields.  The  scene  saddened  the  boy.  A  lump  came 
into  his  throat  and  he  wanted  back  the  green  shin 
ing  beauty  of  the  spring.  He  wished  to  hear  the 
birds  singing  in  the  air  and  in  the  grass  on  the  hill 
side. 

Cracked  McGregor  was  in  another  mood.  He 
seemed  more  satisfied  than  on  the  first  visit  and  ran 
up  and  down  on  the  little  eminence  rubbing  his 
hands  together  and  on  the  legs  of  his  trousers. 
Through  the  long  afternoon  he  sat  on  the  log  mut 
tering  and  smiling. 

On  the  road  home  through  the  darkened  woods 
the  restless  hurrying  leaves  frightened  the  boy  so 
that,  with  his  weariness  from  walking  against  the 
wind,  his  hunger  from  being  all  day  without  food, 
and  with  the  cold  nipping  at  his  body,  he  began  to 
cry.  The  father  took  the  boy  in  his  arms  and  hold 
ing  him  across  his  breast  like  a  babe  went  down 
the  hill  to  their  home. 

It  was  on  a  Tuesday  morning  that  Cracked  Me- 


20  MARCHING  MEN 

Gregor  died.  His  death  fixed  itself  as  something 
fine  in  the  mind  of  the  boy  and  the  scene  and  the 
circumstance  stayed  with  him  through  life,  filling 
him  with  secret  pride  like  a  knowledge  of  good 
blood.  "It  means  something  that  I  am  the  son  of 
such  a  man,"  he  thought. 

It  was  past  ten  in  the  morning  when  the  cry  of 
"Fire  in  the  mine"  ran  up  the  hill  to  the  houses  of 
the  miners.  A  panic  seized  the  women.  In  their 
minds  they  saw  the  men  hurrying  down  old  cuts, 
crouching  in  hidden  corridors,  pursued  by  death. 
Cracked  McGregor,  one  of  the  night  shift,  slept  in 
liis  house.  The  boy's  mother,  threw  a  shawl  about 
her  head,  took  his  hand  and  ran  down  the  hill  to 
the  mouth  of  the  mine.  Cold  winds  spitting  snow 
blew  in  their  faces.  They  ran  along  the  tracks 
of  the  railroad,  stumbling  over  the  ties,  and  stood 
on  the  railroad  embankment  that  overlooked  the 
runway  to  the  mine. 

About  the  runway  and  along  the  embankment 
stood  the  silent  miners,  their  hands  in  their  trousers 
pockets,  staring  stolidly  at  the  closed  door  of  the 
mine.  Among  them  was  no  impulse  toward  con 
certed  action.  Like  animals  at  the  door  of  a 
slaughter-house  they  stood  as  though  waiting  their 
turn  to  be  driven  in  at  the  door.  An  old  crone  with 
bent  back  and  a  huge  stick  in  her  hand  went  from 
one  to  another  of  the  miners  gesticulating  and  talk- 


MARCHING  MEN  21 

ing.  "Get  my  boy — my  Steve!  Get  him  out  of 
there!"  she  shouted,  waving  the  stick  about. 

The  door  of  the  mine  opened  and  three  men  came 
out,  staggering  as  they  pushed  before  them  a  small 
car  that  ran  upon  rails.  On  the  car  lay  three  other 
men,  silent  and  motionless.  A  woman  thinly  clad 
and  with  great  cave-like  hollows  in  her  face  climbed 
the  embankment  and  sat  upon  the  ground  below  the 
boy  and  his  mother.  "The  fire  is  in  the  old  Mc- 
Crary  cut,"  she  said,  her  voice  quivering,  a  dumb 
hopeless  look  in  her  eyes.  "They  can't  get  through 
to  close  the  doors.  My  man  Ike  is  in  there."  She 
put  down  her  head  and  sat  weeping.  The  boy  knew 
the  woman.  She  was  a  neighbour  who  lived  in  an 
unpainted  house  on  the  hillside.  In  the  yard  in 
front  of  her  house  a  swarm  of  children  played 
among  the  stones.  Her  husband,  a  great  hulking 
fellow,  got  drunk  and  when  he  came  home  kicked, 
his  wife.  The  boy  had  heard  her  screaming  at 
night 

Suddenly  in  the  growing  crowd  of  miners  below 
the  embankment  Beaut  McGregor  saw  his  father 
moving  restlessly  about.  On  his  head  he  had  his 
cap  with  the  miner's  lamp  lighted.  He  went  from 
group  to  group  among  the  people,  his  head  hanging 
to  one  side.  The  boy  looked  at  him  intently.  He 
was  reminded  of  the  October  day  on  the  eminence 
overlooking  the  fruitful  valley  and  again  he  thought 
of  his  father  as  a  man  inspired,  going  through  a 


22        ,  MARCHING  MEN 

kind  of  ceremony.  The  tall  miner  rubbed  his  hands 
up  and  down  his  legs,  he  peered  into  the  faces  of 
the  silent  men  standing  about,  his  lips  moved  and 
his  red  beard  danced  up  and  down. 

As  the  boy  looked  a  change  came  over  the  face 
of  Cracked  McGregor.  He  ran  to  the  foot  of  the 
embankment  and  looked  up.  In  his  eyes  was  the 
look  of  a  perplexed  animal.  The  wife  bent  down 
and  began  to  talk  to  the  weeping  woman  on  the 
ground,  trying  to  comfort  her.  She  did  not  see  her 
husband  and  the  boy  and  man  stood  in  silence  look 
ing  into  each  other's  eyes. 

Then  the  puzzled  look  went  out  of  the  father's 
face.  He  turned  and  running  along  with  his  head 
rolling  about  reached  the  closed  door  of  the  mine. 
A  man,  who  wore  a  white  collar  and  had  a  cigar 
stuck  in  the  corner  of  his  mouth,  put  out  his  hand. 

"Stop!  Wait!"  he  shouted.  Pushing  the  man 
aside  with  his  powerful  arm  the  runner  pulled  open 
the  door  of  the  mine  and  disappeared  down  the 
runway. 

A  hubbub  arose.  The  man  in  the  white  collar 
took  the  cigar  from  his  mouth  and  began  to  swear 
violently.  The  boy  stood  on  the  embankment  and 
saw  his  mother  running  toward  the  runway  of  the 
mine.  A  miner  gripped  her  by  the  arm  and  led 
her  back  up  the  face  of  the  embankment.  In  the 
crowd  a  woman's  voice  shouted,  "It's  Cracked  Mc 
Gregor  gone  to  close  the  door  to  the  McCrary  cut." 


MARCHING  MEN  23 

The  man  with  the  white  collar  glared  about  as  he 
chewed  the  end  of  his  cigar.  "He's  gone  crazy," 
he  shouted,  again  closing  the  door  to  the  mine. 

Cracked  McGregor  died  in  the  mine,  almost 
within  reach  of  the  door  to  the  old  cut  where  the 
fire  burned.  With  him  died  all  but  five  of  the  im 
prisoned  miners.  All  day  parties  of  men  tried  to 
get  down  into  the  mine.  Below  in  the  hidden  pas 
sages  under  their  own  homes  the  scurrying  miners 
died  like  rats  in  a  burning  barn  while  their  wives, 
with  shawls  over  their  heads,  sat  silently  weeping 
on  the  railroad  embankment.  In  the  evening  the 
boy  and  his  mother  went  up  the  hill  alone.  From 
the  houses  scattered  over  the  hill  came  the  sound 
of  women  weeping. 

For  several  years  after  the  mine  disaster  the  Mc 
Gregors,  mother  and  son,  lived  in  the  house  on  the 
hillside.  The  woman  went  each  morning  to  the  of 
fices  of  the  mine  where  she  washed  windows  and 
scrubbed  floors.  The  position  was  a  sort  of  recog 
nition  on  the  part  of  the  mine  officials  of  the  hero 
ism  of  Cracked  McGregor. 

Nance  McGregor  was  a  small  blue-eyed  woman 
with  a  sharp  nose.  She  wore  glasses  and  had  the 
name  in  Coal  Creek  of  being  quick  and  sharp.  She 
did  not  stand  by  the  fence  to  talk  with  the  wives 
of  other  miners  but  sat  in  her  house  and  sewed 
or  read  aloud  to  her  son.  She  subscribed  for  a 


24  MARCHING  MEN 

magazine  and  had  bound  copies  of  it  standing  upon 
shelves  in  the  room  where  she  and  the  boy  ate 
breakfast  in  the  early  morning.  Before  the  death 
of  her  husband  she  had  maintained  a  habit  of  silence 
in  her  house  but  after  his  death  she  expanded,  and, 
with  her  red-haired  son,  discussed  freely  every 
phase  of  their  narrow  lives.  As  he  grew  older  the 
boy  began  to  believe  that  she  like  the  miners  had 
kept  hidden  under  her  silence  a  secret  fear  of  his 
father.  Certain  things  she  said  of  her  life  encour 
aged  the  thought. 

Norman  McGregor  grew  into  a  tall  broad-shoul 
dered  boy  with  strong  arms,  flaming  red  hair  and 
a  habit  of  sudden  and  violent  fits  of  temper.  There 
was  something  about  him  that  held  the  attention. 
As  he  grew  older  and  was  renamed  by  Uncle  Charlie 
Wheeler  he  began  going  about  looking  for  trouble. 
When  the  boys  called  him  "Beaut"  he  knocked  them 
down.  When  men  shouted  the  name  after  him  on 
the  street  he  followed  them  with  black  looks.  It  be 
came  a  point  of  honour  with  him  to  resent  the 
name.  He  connected  it  with  the  town's  unfairness 
to  Cracked  McGregor. 

In  the  house  on  the  hillside  the  boy  and  his 
mother  lived  together  happily.  In  the  early  morn 
ing  they  went  down  the  hill  and  across  the  tracks 
to  the  offices  of  the  mine.  From  the  offices  the 
boy  went  up  the  hill  on  the  farther  side  of  the  val 
ley  and  sat  upon  the  schoolhouse  steps  or  wandered 


MARCHING  MEN  25 

in  the  streets  waiting  for  the  day  in  school  to  begin. 
In  the  evening  mother  and  son  sat  upon  the  steps  at 
the  front  of  their  home  and  watched  the  glare  of  the 
coke  ovens  on  the  sky  and  the  lights  of  the  swiftly- 
running  passenger  trains,  roaring  whistling  and 
disappearing  into  the  night. 

Nance  McGregor  talked  to  her  son  of  the  big 
world  outside  the  valley  and  told  him  of  the  cities, 
the  seas  and  the  strange  lands  and  peoples  beyond 
the  seas.  "We  have  dug  in  the  ground  like  rats," 
she  said,  "I  and  my  people  and  your  father  and  his 
people.  With  you  it  will  be  different.  You  will 
get  out  of  here  to  other  places  and  other  work." 
She  grew  indignant  thinking  of  the  life  in  the 
town.  "We  are  stuck  down  here  amid  dirt,  living 
in  it,  breathing  it,"  she  complained.  "Sixty  men 
died  in  that  hole  in  the  ground  and  then  the  mine 
started  again  with  new  men.  We  stay  here  year 
after  year  digging  coal  to  burn  in  engines  that  take 
other  people  across  the  seas  and  into  the  West." 

When  the  son  was  a  tall  strong  boy  of  fourteen 
Nance  McGregor  bought  the  bakery  and  to  buy  it 
took  the  money  saved  by  Cracked  McGregor.  With 
it  he  had  planned  to  buy  a  farm  in  the  valley  beyond 
the  hill.  Dollar  by  dollar  it  had  been  put  away  by 
the  miner  who  dreamed  of  life  in  his  own  fields. 

In  the  bakery  the  boy  worked  and  learned  to 
make  bread.  Kneading  the  dough  his  arms  and 
hands  grew  as  strong  as  a  bear's.  He  hated  the 


26  MARCHING  MEN 

work,  he  hated  Coal  Creek  and  dreamed  of  life  in 
the  city  and  of  the  part  he  should  play  there. 
Among  the  young  men  he  began  to  make  here  and 
there  a  friend.  Like  his  father  he  attracted  atten 
tion.  Women  looked  at  him,  laughed  at  his  big 
frame  and  strong  homely  features  and  looked 
again.  When  they  spoke  to  him  in  the  bakery  or 
on  the  street  he  spoke  back  fearlessly  and  looked 
them  in  the  eyes.  Young  girls  in  the  school  walked 
home  down  the  hill  with  other  boys  and  at  night 
dreamed  of  Beaut  McGregor.  When  some  one  spoke 
ill  of  him  they  answered  defending  and  praising 
him.  Like  his  father  he  was  a  marked  man  in  the 
town  of  Coal  Creek. 


CHAPTER  II 

ONE  Sunday  afternoon  three  boys  sat  on  a  log 
on  the  side  of  the  hill  that  looked  down  into  Coal 
Creek.  From  where  they  sat  they  could  see  the 
workers  of  the  night  shift  idling  in  the  sun  on  Main 
Street.  From  the  coke  ovens  a  thin  line  of  smoke 
rose  into  the  sky.  A  freight  train  heavily  loaded 
crept  round  the  hill  at  the  end  of  the  valley.  It 
was  spring  and  over  even  that  hive  of  black  indus 
try  hung  a  faint  promise  of  beauty.  The  boys  talked 
of  the  life  of  people  in  their  town  and  as  they 
talked  thought  each  of  himself. 

Although  he  had  not  been  out  of  the  valley  and 
had  grown  strong  and  big  there,  Beaut  McGregor 
knew  something  of  the  outside  world.  It  isn't  a 
time  when  men  are  shut  off  from  their  fellows. 
Newspapers  and  magazines  have  done  their  work 
too  well.  They  reached  even  into  the  miner's  cabin 
and  the  merchants  along  Main  Street  of  Coal  Creek 
stood  before  their  stores  in  the  afternoon  and  talked 
of  the  doings  of  the  world.  Beaut  McGregor  knew 
that  life  in  his  town  was  exceptional,  that  not  every 
where  did  men  toil  all  day  black  and  grimy  under 
ground,  that  not  all  women  were  pale  bloodless  and 

27 


28  MARCHING  MEN 

bent.  As  he  went  about  delivering  bread  he  whistled 
a  song.  "Take  me  back  to  Broadway,"  he  sang 
after  the  soubrette  in  a  show  that  had  once  come 
to  Coal  Creek. 

Now  as  he  sat  on  the  hillside  he  talked  earnestly 
while  he  gesticulated  with  his  hands.  "I  hate  this 
town,"  he  said.  "The  men  here  think  they  are  con 
foundedly  funny.  They  don't  care  for  anything 
but  making  foolish  jokes  and  getting  drunk.  I  want 
to  go  away."  His  voice  rose  and  hatred  flamed  up 
in  him.  "You  wait,"  he  boasted.  "I'll  make  men 
stop  being  fools.  I'll  make  children  of  them.  I'll 
"  Pausing  he  looked  at  his  two  companions. 

Beaut  poked  the  ground  with  a  stick.  The  boy 
sitting  beside  him  laughed.  He  was  a  short  well- 
dressed  black-haired  boy  with  rings  on  his  fingers 
who  worked  in  the  town  poolroom,  racking  the  pool 
balls.  "I'd  like  to  go  where  there  are  women  with 
blood  in  them,"  he  said. 

Three  women  came  up  the  hill  toward  them,  a 
tall  pale  brown-haired  woman  of  twenty-seven  and 
two  fairer  young  girls.  The  black-haired  boy 
straightened  his  tie  and  began  thinking  of  a  conver 
sation  he  would  start  when  the  women  reached  him. 
Beaut  and  the  other  boy,  a  fat  fellow,  the  son  of  a 
grocer,  looked  down  the  hill  to  the  town  over  the 
heads  of  the  newcomers  and  continued  in  their 
minds  the  thoughts  that  had  made  the  conversation. 

"Hello  girls,   come  and  sit  here,"   shouted  the 


MARCHING  MEN  29 

black-haired  boy,  laughing  and  looking  boldly  into 
the  eyes  of  the  tall  pale  woman.  They  stopped 
and  the  tall  woman  began  stepping  over  the  fallen 
logs,  coming  to  them.  The  two  young  girls  fol 
lowed,  laughing.  They  sat  down  on  the  log  beside 
the  boys,  the  tall  pale  woman  at  the  end  beside  red- 
haired  McGregor.  An  embarrassed  silence  fell  over 
the  party.  Both  Beaut  and  the  fat  boy  were  discon 
certed  by  this  turn  to  their  afternoon's  outing  and 
wondered  how  it  would  turn  out. 

The  pale  woman  began  to  talk  in  a  low  tone.  "I 
want  to  get  away  from  here,"  she  said,  "I  wish  I 
could  hear  birds  sing  and  see  green  things  grow." 

Beaut  McGregor  had  an  idea.  "You  come  with 
me,"  he  said.  He  got  up  and  climbed  over  the  logs 
and  the  pale  woman  followed.  The  fat  boy  shouted 
at  them,  relieving  his  own  embarrassment  by  try 
ing  to  embarrass  them.  "Where  're  you  going — 
you  two?"  he  shouted. 

Beaut  said  nothing.  He  stepped  over  the  logs  to 
the  road  and  began  climbing  the  hill.  The  tall  wom 
an  walked  beside  him  and  held  her  skirts  out  of 
the  deep  dust  of  the  road.  Even  on  this  her  Sun 
day  gown  there  was  a  faint  black  mark  along  the 
seams — the  mark  of  Coal  Creek. 

As  McGregor  walked  his  embarrassment  left  him. 
He  thought  it  fine  that  he  should  be  thus  alone  with 
a  woman.  When  she  had  tired  from  the  climb  he 
sat  with  her  on  a  log  beside  the  road  and  talked  of 


30  MARCHING  MEN 

the  black-haired  boy.  "He  has  your  ring  on  his 
finger,"  he  said,  looking  at  her  and  laughing. 

She  held  her  hand  pressed  tightly  against  her  side 
and  closed  her  eyes.  "The  climbing  hurts  me,"  she 
said. 

Tenderness  took  hold  of  Beaut.  When  they  went 
on  again  he  walked  behind  her,  his  hand  upon  her 
back  pushing  her  up  the  hill.  The  desire  to  tease 
her  about  the  black-haired  boy  had  passed  and  he 
wished  he  had  said  nothing  about  the  ring.  He  re 
membered  the  story  the  black-haired  boy  had  told 
him  of  his  conquest  of  the  woman.  "More  than 
likely  a  mess  of  lies,"  he  thought. 

Over  the  crest  of  the  hill  they  stopped  and  rested, 
leaning  against  a  worn  rail  fence  by  the  woods.  Be 
low  them  in  a  wagon  a  party  of  men  went  down 
the  hill.  The  men  sat  upon  boards  laid  across  the 
box  of  a  wagon  and  sang  a  song.  One  of  them 
stood  in  the  seat  beside  the  driver  and  waved  a  bot 
tle.  He  seemed  to  be  making  a  speech.  The  others 
shouted  and  clapped  their  hands.  The  sounds  came 
faint  and  sharp  up  the  hill. 

In  the  woods  beside  the  fence  rank  grass  grew. 
Hawks  floated  in  the  sky  over  the  valley  below.  A 
squirrel  running  along  the  fence  stopped  and  chat 
tered  at  them.  McGregor  thought  he  had  never  had 
so  delightful  a  companion.  He  got  a  feeling  of 
complete,  good  fellowship  and  friendliness  with  this 
woman.  Without  knowing  how  the  thing  had  been 


MARCHING  MEN  31 

done  he  felt  a  certain  pride  in  it.  "Don't  mind 
what  I  said  about  the  ring,"  he  urged,  "I  was  only 
trying  to  tease  you." 

The  woman  beside  McGregor  was  the  daughter 
of  an  undertaker  who  lived  upstairs  over  his  shop 
near  the  bakery.  He  had  seen  her  in  the  evening 
standing  in  the  stairway  by  the  shop  door.  After 
the  story  told  him  by  the  black-haired  boy  he  had 
been  embarrassed  about  her.  When  he  passed  her 
standing  in  the  stairway  he  went  hurriedly  along 
and  looked  into  the  gutter. 

They  went  down  the  hill  and  sat  on  the  log  upon 
the  hillside.  A  clump  of  elders  had  grown  about 
the  log  since  his  visits  there  with  Cracked  McGregor 
so  that  the  place  was  closed  and  shaded  like  a  room. 
The  woman  took  off  her  hat  and  laid  it  beside  her 
on  the  log.  A  faint  colour  mounted  to  her  pale 
cheeks  and  a  flash  of  anger  gleamed  in  her  eyes. 
"He  probably  lied  to  you  about  me,"  she  said,  "I 
didn't  give  him  that  ring  to  wear.  I  don't  know 
why  I  gave  it  to  him.  He  wanted  it.  He  asked  me 
for  it  time  and  again.  He  said  he  wanted  to  show 
it  to  his  mother.  And  now  he  has  shown  it  to  you 
and  I  suppose  told  lies  about  me." 

Beaut  was  annoyed  and  wished  he  had  not  men 
tioned  the  ring.  He  felt  that  an  unnecessary  fuss 
was  being  made  about  it.  He  did  not  believe  that 
the  black-haired  boy  had  lied  but  he  did  not  think 
it  mattered. 


32  MARCHING  MEN 

He  began  talking  of  his  father,  boasting  of  him. 
His  hatred  of  the  town  blazed  up.  "They  thought 
they  knew  him  down  there,"  he  said,  "they  laughed 
at  him  and  called  him  'Cracked.'  They  thought 
his  running  into  the  mine  just  a  crazy  notion  like 
a  horse  that  runs  into  a  burning  stable.  He  was 
the  best  man  in  town.  He  was  braver  than  any  of 
them.  He  went  in  there  and  died  when  he  had  al 
most  enough  money  saved  to  buy  a  farm  over  here." 
He  pointed  down  the  valley. 

Beaut  began  to  tell  her  of  the  visits  to  the  hill 
side  with  his  father  and  described  the  effect  of  the 
scene  on  himself  when  he  was  a  child.  "I  thought 
it  was  paradise,"  he  said. 

She  put  her  hand  on  his  arm  and  seemed  to  be 
soothing  him  like  a  careful  groom  quieting  an  ex 
citable  horse.  "Don't  mind  them,"  she  said,  "you 
will  go  away  after  a  time  and  make  a  place  for 
yourself  out  in  the  world." 

He  wondered  how  she  knew.  A  profound  respect 
for  her  came  over  him.  "She  is  keen  to  guess  that," 
he  thought. 

He  began  to  talk  of  himself,  boasting  and  throw 
ing  out  his  chest.  "I'd  like  to  have  the  chance  to 
show  what  I  can  do,"  he  declared.  A  thought  that 
had  been  in  his  mind  on  the  winter  day  when  Uncle 
Charlie  Wheeler  put  the  name  of  Beaut  upon  him 
came  back  and  he  walked  up  and  down  before  the 
woman  making  grotesque  motions  with  his  hands 


MARCHING  MEN  33 

as  Cracked  McGregor  had  walked  up  and  down 
before  him. 

"I'll  tell  you  what,"  he  began  and  his  voice  was 
harsh.  He  had  forgotten  the  presence  of  the 
woman  and  half  forgotten  what  had  been  in  his 
mind.  He  sputtered  and  glared  over  his  shoulder 
up  the  hillside  as  he  struggled  for  words.  "Oh  to 
Hell  with  men!"  he  burst  forth.  "They  are  cat 
tle,  stupid  cattle."  A  fire  blazed  up  in  his  eyes  and  a 
confident  ring  came  into  his  voice.  "I'd  like  to  get 
them  together,  all  of  them,"  he  said,  "I'd  like  to 

make  them "    Words  failed  him  and  again  he 

sat  down  on  the  log  beside  the  woman.  "Well  I'd 
like  to  lead  them  to  an  old  mine  shaft  and  push 
them  in,"  he  concluded  resentfully. 

On  the  eminence  Beaut  and  the  tall  woman  sat 
and  looked  down  into  the  valley.  "I  wonder  why 
we  don't  go  there,  mother  and  I,"  he  said.  "When 
I  see  it  I'm  filled  with  the  notion.  I  think  I  want 
to  be  a  farmer  and  work  in  the  fields.  Instead  of 
that  mother  and  I  sit  and  plan  of  the  city.  I'm 
going  to  be  a  lawyer.  That's  all  we  talk  about. 
Then  I  come  up  here  and  it  seems  as  though  this  is 
the  place  for  me." 

The  tall  woman  laughed.  "I  can  see  you  coming 
home  at  night  from  the  fields,"  she  said.  "It  might 
be  to  that  white  house  there  with  the  windmill. 
You  would  be  a  big  man  and  would  have  dust  in 


34  MARCHING  MEN 

your  red  hair  and  perhaps  a  red  beard  growing  on 
your  chin.  And  a  woman  with  a  baby  in  her  arms 
would  come  out  of  the  kitchen  door  to  stand  lean 
ing  on  the  fence  waiting  for  you.  When  you  came 
up  she  would  put  her  arm  around  your  neck  and  kiss 
you  on  the  lips.  The  beard  would  tickle  her  cheek. 
You  should  have  a  beard  when  you  grow  older. 
Your  mouth  is  so  big." 

A  strange  new  feeling  shot  through  Beaut.  He 
wondered  why  she  had  said  that  and  wanted  to  take 
hold  of  her  hand  and  kiss  her  then  and  there.  He 
got  up  and  looked  at  the  sun  going  down  behind 
the  hill  far  away  at  the  other  end  of  the  valley. 
"We'd  better  be  getting  along  back,"  he  said. 

The  woman  remained  seated  on  the  log.  "Sit 
down,"  she  said,  "I'll  tell  you  something — some 
thing  it's  good  for  you  to  hear.  You're  so  big  and 
red  you  tempt  a  girl  to  bother  you.  First  though 
you  tell  me  why  you  go  along  the  street  looking  into 
the  gutter  when  I  stand  in  the  stairway  in  the  eve 
ning." 

Beaut  sat  down  again  upon  the  log,  and  thought 
of  what  the  black-haired  boy  had  told  him  of  her. 
"Then  it  was  true — what  he  said  about  you?"  he 
asked. 

"No!  No!"  she  cried,  jumping  up  in  her  turn 
and  beginning  to  pin  on  her  hat.  "Let's  be  going." 

Beaut  sat  stolidly  on  the  log.  "What's  the  use 
bothering  each  other,"  he  said.  "Let's  sit  here  un- 


MARCHING  MEN  35 

til  the  sun  goes  down.  We  can  get  home  before 
dark." 

They  sat  down  and  she  began  talking,  boasting  of 
herself  as  he  had  boasted  of  his  father. 

"I'm  too  old  for  that  boy,"  she  said ;  "I'm  older 
than  you  by  a  good  many  years.  I  know  what  boys 
talk  about  and  what  they  say  about  women.  I  do 
pretty  well.  I  don't  have  any  one  to  talk  to  ex 
cept  father  and  he  sits  all  evening  reading  a  paper 
and  going  to  sleep  in  his  chair.  If  I  let  boys  come 
and  sit  with  me  in  the  evening  or  stand  talking 
with  me  in  the  stairway  it  is  because  I'm  lonesome. 
There  isn't  a  man  in  town  I'd  marry — not  one." 

The  speech  sounded  discordant  and  harsh  to 
Beaut.  He  wished  his  father  were  there  rubbing 
his  hands  together  and  muttering  rather  than  this 
pale  woman  who  stirred  him  up  and  then  talked 
harshly  like  the  women  at  the  back  doors  in  Coal 
Creek.  He  thought  again  as  he  had  thought  before 
that  he  preferred  the  black-faced  miners  drunk  and 
silent  to  their  pale  talking  wives.  On  an  impulse 
he  told  her  that,  saying  it  crudely  so  that  it  hurt. 

Their  companionship  was  spoiled.  They  got  up 
and  began  to  climb  the  hill,  going  toward  home. 
Again  she  put  her  hand  to  her  side  and  again  he 
wished  to  put  his  hand  at  her  back  and  push  her 
up  the  hill.  Instead  he  walked  beside  her  in  silence, 
again  hating  the  town. 

Halfway  down  the  hill  the  tall  woman  stopped  by 


36  MARCHING  MEN 

the  road-side.  Darkness  was  coming  on  and  the 
glow  of  the  coke  ovens  lighted  the  sky.  "One  liv 
ing  up  here  and  never  going  down  there  might 
think  it  rather  grand  and  big,"  he  said.  Again  the 
hatred  came.  "They  might  think  the  men  who 
live  down  there  knew  something  instead  of  being 
just  a  lot  of  cattle." 

A  smile  came  into  the  face  of  the  tall  woman 
and  a  gentler  look  stole  into  her  eyes.  "We  get 
at  one  another,"  she  said,  "we  can't  let  one  an 
other  alone.  I  wish  we  hadn't  quarrelled.  We 
might  be  friends  if  we  tried.  You  have  got  some 
thing  in  you.  You  attract  women.  I've  heard 
others  say  that.  Your  father  was  that  way.  Most 
of  the  women  here  would  rather  have  been  the  wife 
of  Cracked  McGregor  ugly  as  he  was  than  to  have 
stayed  with  their  own  husbands.  I  heard  my  mother 
say  that  to  father  when  they  lay  quarrelling  in  bed 
at  night  and  I  lay  listening." 

The  boy  was  overcome  with  the  thought  of  a 
woman  talking  to  him  so  frankly.  He  looked  at 
her  and  said  what  was  in  his  mind.  "I  don't  like 
the  women,"  he  said,  "but  I  liked  you,  seeing  you 
standing  in  the  stairway  and  thinking  you  had  been 
doing  as  you  pleased.  I  thought  maybe  you 
amounted  to  something.  I  don't  know  why  you 
should  be  bothered  by  what  I  think.  I  don't  know 
why  any  woman  should  be  bothered  by  what  any 
man  thinks.  I  should  think  you  would  go  right  on 


MARCHING  MEN  37 

doing  what  you  want  to  do  like  mother  and  me 
about  my  being  a  lawyer." 

He  sat  on  a  log  beside  the  road  near  where  he 
had  met  her  and  watched  her  go  down  the  hill. 
"I'm  quite  a  fellow  to  have  talked  to  her  all  after 
noon  like  that,"  he  thought  and  pride  in  his  grow 
ing  manhood  crept  over  him. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  town  of  Coal  Creek  was  hideous.  People 
from  prosperous  towns  and  cities  of  the  middle 
west,  from  Ohio,  Illinois,  and  Iowa,  going  east  to 
New  York  or  Philadelphia,  looked  out  of  the  car 
windows  and  seeing  the  poor  little  houses  scattered 
along  the  hillside  thought  of  books  they  had  read 
of  life  in  hovels  in  the  old  world.  In  chair-cars 
men  and  women  leaned  back  and  closed  their  eyes. 
They  yawned  and  wished  the  journey  would  come 
to  an  end.  If  they  thought  of  the  town  at  all  they 
regretted  it  mildly  and  passed  it  off  as  a  necessity 
of  modern  life. 

The  houses  on  the  hillside  and  the  stores  along 
Main  Street  belonged  to  the  mining  company.  In 
its  turn  the  mining  company  belonged  to  the  of 
ficials  of  the  railroad.  The  manager  of  the  mine 
had  a  brother  who  was  division  superintendent.  It 
was  the  mine  manager  who  had  stood  by  the  door 
of  the  mine  when  Cracked  McGregor  went  to  his 
death.  He  lived  in  a  city  some  thirty  miles  away, 
and  went  there  in  the  evening  on  the  train.  With 
him  went  the  clerks  and  even  the  stenographers 
from  the  offices  of  the  mine.  After  five  o'clock  in 

38 


MARCHING  MEN  39 

the  afternoon  no  white  collars  were  to  be  seen  upon 
the  streets  of  Coal  Creek. 

In  the  town  men  lived  like  brutes.  Dumb  with 
toil  they  drank  greedily  in  the  saloon  on  Main 
Street  and  went  home  to  beat  their  wives.  Among 
them  a  constant  low  muttering  went  on.  They  felt 
the  injustice  of  their  lot  but  could  not  voice  it  log 
ically  and  when  they  thought  of  the  men  who 
owned  the  mine  they  swore  dumbly,  using  vile  oaths 
even  in  their  thoughts.  Occasionally  a  strike  broke 
out  and  Barney  Butterlips,  a  thin  little  man  with  a 
cork  leg,  stood  on  a  box  and  made  speeches  regard 
ing  the  coming  brotherhood  of  man.  Once  a  troop 
of  cavalry  was  unloaded  from  the  cars  and  with  a 
battery  paraded  the  main  street.  The  battery  was 
made  up  of  several  men  in  brown  uniforms.  They 
set  up  a  Catling  gun  at  the  end  of  the  street  and 
the  strike  subsided. 

An  Italian  who  lived  in  a  house  on  the  hillside  cul 
tivated  a  garden.  His  place  was  the  one  beauty 
spot  in  the  valley.  With  a  wheelbarrow  he  brought 
earth  from  the  woods  at  the  top  of  the  hill  and 
on  Sunday  he  could  be  seen  going  back  and  forth 
and  whistling  merrily.  In  the  winter  he  sat  in  his 
house  making  a  drawing  on  a  bit  of  paper.  In  the 
spring  he  took  the  drawing,  and  by  it  planted  his 
garden,  utilising  every  inch  of  his  ground.  When  a 
strike  came  on  he  was  told  by  the  mine  manager  to 
go  on  back  to  work  or  move  out  of  his  house.  He 


40  MARCHING  MEN 

thought  of  the  garden  and  the  work  he  had  done 
and  went  back  to  his  routine  of  work  in  the  mine. 
While  he  worked  the  miners  marched  up  the  hill 
and  destroyed  the  garden.  The  next  day  the  Italian 
also  joined  the  striking  miners. 

In  a  little  one-room  shack  on  the  hill  lived  an 
old  woman.  She  lived  alone  and  was  vilely  dirty. 
In  her  house  she  had  old  broken  chairs  and  tables 
picked  up  about  town  and  piled  in  such  profusion 
that  she  could  scarcely  move  about.  On  warm 
days  she  sat  in  the  sun  before  the  shack  chew 
ing  on  a  stick  that  had  been  dipped  in  tobacco. 
Miners  coming  up  the  hill  dumped  bits  of  bread  and 
meat-ends  out  of  their  dinner-pails  into  a  box  nailed 
to  a  tree  by  the  road.  These  the  old  woman  col 
lected  and  ate.  When  the  soldiers  came  to  town 
she  walked  along  the  street  jeering  at  them.  "Pretty 
boys!  Scabs!  Dudes!  Dry-goods  clerks!"  she 
called  after  them  as  she  walked  by  the  tails  of  their 
horses.  A  young  man  with  glasses  on  his  nose, 
who  was  mounted  on  a  grey  horse  turned  and  called 
to  his  comrades,  "Let  her  alone — it's  old  Mother 
Misery  herself." 

When  the  tall  red-haired  boy  looked  at  the  work 
ers  and  at  the  old  woman  who  followed  the  soldiers 
he  did  not  sympathise  with  them.  He  hated  them. 
In  a  way  he  sympathised  with  the  soldiers.  His 
blood  was  stirred  by  the  sight  of  them  marching 
shoulder  to  shoulder.  He  thought  there  was  order 


MARCHING  MEN  41 

and  decency  in  the  rank  of  uniformed  men  moving 
silently  and  quickly  along  and  he  half  wished  they 
would  destroy  the  town.  When  the  strikers  made 
a  wreck  of  the  garden  of  the  Italian  he  was  deeply 
touched  and  walked  up  and  down  in  the  room  be 
fore  his  mother,  proclaiming  himself.  "I  would 
have  killed  them  had  it  been  my  garden,"  he  said. 
"I  would  not  have  left  one  of  them  alive."  In  his 
heart  he  like  Cracked  McGregor  nursed  his  hatred 
of  the  miners  and  of  the  town.  "The  place  is  one 
to  get  out  of,"  he  said.  "If  a  man  doesn't  like  it 
here  let  him  get  up  and  leave."  He  remembered  his 
father  working  and  saving  for  the  farm  in  the  val 
ley.  "They  thought  him  cracked  but  he  knew  more 
than  they.  They  would  not  have  dared  touch  a 
garden  he  had  planted." 

In  the  heart  of  the  miner's  son  strange  half- 
formed  thoughts  began  to  find  lodgings.  Remem 
bering  in  his  dreams  at  night  the  moving  columns 
of  men  in  their  uniforms  he  read  new  meaning  into 
the  scraps  of  history  picked  up  in  the  school  and 
the  movements  of  men  in  old  history  began  to  have 
significance  for  him.  On  a  summer  afternoon  as 
he  loitered  before  the  town's  hotel,  beneath  which 
was  the  saloon  and  billiard  room  where  the  black- 
haired  boy  worked,  he  overheard  two  men  talking 
of  the  significance  of  men. 

One  of  the  men  was  an  itinerant  oculist  who 
came  to  the  mining  town  once  a  month  to  fit  and  sell 


42  MARCHING  MEN 

spectacles.  When  the  oculist  had  sold  several  pairs 
of  spectacles  he  got  drunk,  sometimes  staying  drunk 
for  a  week.  When  he  was  drunk  he  spoke  French 
and  Italian  and  sometimes  stood  in  the  barroom  be 
fore  the  miners,  quoting  the  poems  of  Dante.  His 
clothes  were  greasy  from  long  wear  and  he  had  a 
huge  nose  streaked  with  red  and  purple  veins.  Be 
cause  of  his  learning  in  the  languages  and  his  quot 
ing  of  poems  the  miners  thought  the  oculist  in 
finitely  wise.  To  them  it  seemed  that  one  with  such 
a  mind  must  have  almost  unearthly  knowledge  con 
cerning  the  eyes  and  the  fitting  of  glasses  and  they 
wore  with  pride  the  cheap  ill-fitting  things  he  thrust 
upon  them. 

Occasionally,  as  though  making  a  concession  to 
his  patrons,  the  oculist  spent  an  evening  among 
them.  Once  after  reciting  one  of  the  sonnets  of 
Shakespeare  he  put  a  hand  on  the  bar  and  rock 
ing  gently  back  and  forth  sang  in  a  drink-broken 
voice  a  ballad  beginning  "The  harp  that  once 
through  Tara's  halls  the  soul  of  music  shed." 
After  the  song  he  put  his  head  down  upon  the  bar 
and  wept  while  the  miners  looked  on  touched  with 
sympathy. 

On  the  summer  afternoon  when  Beaut  McGregor 
listened,  the  oculist  was  engaged  in  a  violent  quar 
rel  with  another  man,  drunk  like  himself.  The  sec 
ond  man  was  a  slender  dandified  fellow  of  middle 
age  who  sold  shoes  for  a  Philadelphia  jobbing- 


MARCHING  MEN  43 

house.  He  sat  in  a  chair  tilted  against  the  hotel  and 
tried  to  read  aloud  from  a  book.  When  he  was 
fairly  launched  in  a  long  paragraph  the  oculist  in 
terrupted.  Staggering  up  and  down  the  narrow 
board  walk  before  the  hotel  the  old  drunkard  raved 
and  swore.  He  seemed  beside  himself  with  wrath. 

"I  am  sick  of  such  slobbering  philosophy,"  he  de 
clared.  "Even  the  reading  of  it  makes  you  drool 
at  the  mouth.  You  do  not  say  the  words  sharply, 
and  they  can't  be  said  sharply.  I'm  a  strong  man 
myself." 

Spreading  his  legs  wide  apart  and  blowing  up 
his  cheeks,  the  oculist  beat  upon  his  breast.  With 
a  wave  of  his  hand  he  dismissed  the  man  in  the 
chair. 

"You  but  slobber  and  make  a  foul  noise,"  he  de 
clared.  "I  know  your  kind.  I  spit  upon  you.  The 
Congress  at  Washington  is  full  of  such  fellows  as  is 
also  the  House  of  Commons  in  England.  In  France 
they  were  once  in  charge.  They  ran  things  in 
France  until  the  coming  of  a  man  such  as  myself. 
They  were  lost  in  the  shadow  of  the  great  Na 
poleon." 

The  oculist  as  though  dismissing  the  dandified 
man  from  his  mind  turned  to  address  Beaut.  He 
talked  in  French  and  the  man  in  the  chair  fell  into 
a  troubled  sleep.  "I  am  like  Napoleon,"  the  drunk 
ard  declared,  breaking  again  into  English.  Tears 
began  to  show  in  his  eyes.  "I  take  the  money  of 


44  MARCHING  MEN 

these  miners  and  I  give  them  nothing.  The  spec 
tacles  I  sell  to  their  wives  for  five  dollars  cost  me 
but  fifteen  cents.  I  ride  over  these  brutes  as  Na 
poleon  rode  over  Europe.  There  would  be  order 
and  purpose  in  me  were  I  not  a  fool.  I  am  like  Na 
poleon  in  that  I  have  utter  contempt  for  men." 

Again  and  again  the  words  of  the  drunkard  came 
back  into  the  mind  of  the  McGregor  boy  influenc 
ing  his  thoughts.  Grasping  nothing  of  the  philos 
ophy  back  of  the  man's  words  his  imagination  was 
yet  touched  by  the  drunkard's  tale  of  the  great 
Frenchman,  babbled  into  his  ears,  and  it  in  some 
way  seemed  to  give  point  to  his  hatred  of  the  dis 
organised  ineffectiveness  of  the  life  about  him. 

After  Nance  McGregor  opened  the  bakery  an 
other  strike  came  to  disturb  the  prosperity  of  the 
business.  Again  the  miners  walked  idly  through 
the  streets.  Into  the  bakery  they  came  to  get  bread 
and  told  Nance  to  write  the  debt  down  against 
them.  Beaut  McGregor  was  disturbed.  He  saw 
his  father's  money  being  spent  for  flour  which  when 
baked  into  loaves  went  out  of  the  shop  under  the 
arms  of  the  miners  who  shuffled  as  they  walked. 
One  night  a  man  whose  name  appeared  on  their 
books  followed  by  a  long  record  of  charged  loaves 
came  reeling  past  the  bakery.  McGregor  went  to 
his  mother  and  protested.  "They  have  money  to 


MARCHING  MEN  45 

get  drunk,"  he  said,  "let  them  pay  for  their  loaves." 

Nance  McGregor  went  on  trusting  the  miners. 
She  thought  of  the  women  and  children  in  the 
houses  on  the  hill  and  when  she  heard  of  the  plans 
of  the  mining  company  to  evict  the  miners  from 
their  houses  she  shuddered.  I  was  the  wife  of  a 
miner  and  I  will  stick  to  them,"  she  thought. 

One  day  the  mine  manager  came  into  the  bakery. 
He  leaned  over  the  showcase  and  talked  to  Nance. 
The  son  went  and  stood  by  his  mother's  side  to 
listen.  "It  has  got  to  be  stopped,"  the  manager 
was  saying.  "I  will  not  see  you  ruin  yourself  for 
these  cattle.  I  want  you  to  close  this  place  till  the 
strike  is  over.  If  you  won't  close  it  I  will.  The 
building  belongs  to  us.  They  did  not  appreciate 
what  your  husband  did  and  why  should  you  ruin 
yourself  for  them?" 

The  woman  looked  at  him  and  answered  in  a 
low  tone  full  of  resolution.  "They  thought  he  was 
crazy  and  he  was,"  she  said;  "but  what  made  him 
so — the  rotten  timbers  in  the  mine  that  broke  and 
crushed  him.  You  and  not  they  are  responsible 
for  my  man  and  what  he  was." 

Beaut  McGregor  interrupted.  "Well  I  think  he 
is  right,"  he  declared,  leaning  over  the  counter  be* 
side  his  mother  and  looking  into  her  face.  "Th* 
miners  don't  want  better  things  for  their  families, 
they  want  more  money  to  get  drunk.  We  will  close 
the  doors  here.  We  will  put  no  more  money  into 


46  MARCHING  MEN 

bread  to  go  into  their  gullets.  They  hated  father 
and  he  hated  them  and  now  I  hate  them  also." 

Beaut  walked  around  the  end  of  the  counter  and 
went  with  the  mine  manager  to  the  door.  He 
locked  it  and  put  the  key  into  his  pocket.  Then  he 
walked  to  the  rear  of  the  bake  shop  where  his 
mother  sat  on  a  box  weeping.  "It  is  time  a  man 
took  charge  here,"  he  said. 

Nance  McGregor  and  her  son  sat  in  the  bakery 
and  looked  at  each  other.  Miners  came  along  the 
street,  tried  the  door  and  went  away  grumbling. 
Word  ran  from  lip  to  lip  up  the  hillside.  "The 
mine  manager  has  closed  Nance  McGregor's  shop," 
said  the  women  leaning  over  back  fences.  Children 
sprawling  on  the  floors  of  the  houses  put  up  their 
heads  and  howled.  Their  lives  were  a  succession 
of  new  terrors.  When  a  day  passed  that  a  new 
terror  did  not  shake  them  they  went  to  bed  happy. 
When  the  miner  and  his  woman  stood  by  the  door 
talking  in  low  tones  they  cried,  expecting  to  be  put 
to  bed  hungry.  When  guarded  talk  did  not  go  on 
by  the  door  the  miner  came  home  drunk  and 
beat  the  mother  and  the  children  lay  in  beds  along 
the  wall  trembling  with  fright. 

Late  that  night  a  party  of  miners  came  to  the 
door  of  the  bakery  and  beat  upon  it  with  their  fists. 
"Open  up  here!"  they  shouted.  Beaut  came  out  of 
the  rooms  above  the  bakery  and  stood  in  the  empty 
shop.  His  mother  sat  in  a  chair  in  her  room  and 


MARCHING  MEN  47 

trembled.  He  went  to  the  door  and  unlocking  it 
stepped  out.  The  miners  stood  in  groups  on  the 
wooden  sidewalk  and  in  the  mud  of  the  road. 
Among  them  stood  the  old  crone  who  had  walked 
beside  the  horses  and  shouted  at  the  soldiers.  A 
miner  with  a  black  beard  came  and  stood  before  the 
boy.  Waving  his  hand  at  the  crowd  he  said,  "We 
have  come  to  open  the  bakery.  Some  of  us  have  no 
ovens  in  our  stoves.  You  give  us  the  key  and  we 
will  open  the  place.  We  will  break  in  the  door  if 
you  don't  want  to  do  that.  The  company  can't 
blame  you  if  we  do  it  by  force.  You  can  keep  ac 
count  of  what  we  take.  Then  when  the  strike  is 
settled  we  will  pay  you." 

A  flame  shot  into  the  eyes  of  the  boy.  He  walked 
down  the  steps  and  stood  among  the  miners.  Thrust 
ing  his  hands  into  his  pockets  he  peered  into  their 
faces.  When  he  spoke  his  voice  resounded  through 
the  street,  "You  jeered  at  my  father,  Cracked  Mc 
Gregor,  when  he  went  into  the  mine  for  you.  You 
laughed  at  him  because  he  saved  his  money  and 
did  not  spend  it  buying  you  drinks.  Now  you  come 
here  to  get  bread  his  money  bought  and  you  do  not 
pay.  Then  you  get  drunk  and  go  reeling  past  this 
very  door.  Now  let  me  tell  you  something."  He 
thrust  his  hands  into  the  air  and  shouted.  "The 
mine  manager  did  not  close  this  place.  I  closed  it. 
You  jeered  at  Cracked  McGregor,  a  better  man  than 
any  of  you.  You  have  had  fun  with  me — laugh- 


48  MARCHING  MEN 

ing  at  me.  Now  I  jeer  at  you."  He  ran  up  the 
steps  and  unlocking  the  door  stood  in  the  door 
way.  "Pay  the  money  you  owe  this  bakery  and 
there  will  be  bread  for  sale  here,"  he  called,  and 
went  in  and  locked  the  door. 

The  miners  walked  off  up  the  street.  The  boy 
stood  within  the  bakery,  his  hands  trembling.  "I've 
told  them  something,"  he  thought,  "I've  shown 
them  they  can't  make  a  fool  of  me."  He  went  up 
the  stairway  to  the  rooms  above.  By  the  window 
his  mother  sat,  her  head  in  her  hands,  looking  down 
into  the  street.  He  sat  in  a  chair  and  thought  of 
the  situation.  "They  will  be  back  here  and  smash 
the  place  like  they  tore  up  that  garden,"  he  said. 

The  next  evening  Beaut  sat  in  the  darkness  on 
the  steps  before  the  bakery.  In  his  hands  he  held  a 
hammer.  A  dull  hatred  of  the  town  and  of  the 
miners  burned  in  his  brain.  "I  will  make  it  hot  for 
some  of  them  if  they  come  here,"  he  thought.  -  He 
hoped  they  would  come.  As  he  looked  at  the  ham 
mer  in  his  hand  a  phrase  from  the  lips  of  the 
drunken  old  oculist  babbling  of  Napoleon  came 
into  his  mind.  He  began  to  think  that  he  also  must 
be  like  the  figure  of  which  the  drunkard  had  talked. 
He  remembered  a  story  the  oculist  had  told  of  a 
fight  in  the  streets  of  a  European  city  and  mut 
tered  and  waved  the  hammer  about.  Upstairs  his 
mother  sat  by  the  window  with  her  head  in  her 
hands.  From  the  saloon  down  the  street  a  light 


MARCHING  MEN  49 

gleamed  out  on  the  wet  sidewalk.  The  tall  pale 
woman  who  had  gone  with  him  to  the  eminence 
overlooking  the  valley  came  down  the  stairway  from 
above  the  undertaker's  shop.  She  ran  along  the 
sidewalk.  On  her  head  she  wore  a  shawl  and  as  she 
ran  she  clutched  it  with  her  hand.  The  other  hand 
she  held  against  her  side. 

When  the  women  reached  the  boy  who  sat  in 
silence  before  the  bakery  she  put  her  hands  on  his 
shoulders  and  plead  with  him.  "Come  away,"  she 
said.  "Get  your  mother  and  come  to  our  place. 
They're  going  to  smash  you  up  here.  You'll  get 
hurt." 

Beaut  arose  and  pushed  her  away.  Her  coming 
had  given  him  new  courage.  His  heart  jumped  at 
the  thought  of  her  interest  in  him  and  he  wished 
that  the  miners  might  come  so  that  he  could  fight 
them  before  her.  "I  wish  I  could  live  among  peo 
ple  as  decent  as  she,"  he  thought. 

A  train  stopped  at  the  station  down  the  street. 
There  came  the  sound  of  tramping  of  men  and 
quick  sharp  commands.  A  stream  of  men  poured 
out  of  the  saloon  onto  the  sidewalk.  Down  the 
street  came  a  file  of  soldiers  with  guns  swung 
across  their  shoulders.  Again  Beaut  was  thrilled 
by  the  sight  of  trained  orderly  men  moving  along 
shoulder  to  shoulder.  In  the  presence  of  these  men 
the  disorganized  miners  seemed  pitifully  weak  and 
insignificant.  The  girl  pulled  the  shawl  about  her 


50  MARCHING  MEN 

head  and  ran  up  the  street  to  disappear  into  the 
stairway.  The  boy  unlocked  the  door  and  went 
upstairs  and  to  bed. 

After  the  strike  Nance  McGregor  who  owned 
nothing  but  unpaid  accounts  was  unable  to  open  the 
bakery.  A  small  man  with  a  white  moustache,  who 
chewed  tobacco,  came  from  the  mill  and  took  the 
unused  flour  and  shipped  it  away.  The  boy  and  his 
mother  continued  living  above  the  bakery  store 
room.  Again  she  went  in  the  morning  to  wash  the 
windows  and  scrub  the  floors  in  the  offices  of  the 
mine  and  her  red-haired  son  stood  upon  the  street 
or  sat  in  the  pool  room  and  talked  to  the  black- 
haired  boy.  "Next  week  I'll  be  going  to  the  city 
and  will  begin  making  something  of  myself,"  he 
said.  When  the  time  came  to  go  he  waited  and 
idled  in  the  streets.  Once  when  a  miner  jeered  at 
him  for  his  idleness  he  knocked  him  into  the  gutter. 
The  miners  who  hated  him  for  his  speech  on  the 
steps,  admired  him  for  his  strength  and  brute  cour 
age. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IN  a  cellar-like  house  driven  like  a  stake  into 
the  hillside  above  Coal  Creek  lived  Kate  Hartnet 
with  her  son  Mike.  Her  man  had  died  with  the 
others  during  the  fire  in  the  mine.  Her  son  like 
Beaut  McGregor  did  not  work  in  the  mine.  He  hur 
ried  through  Main  Street  or  went  half  running 
among  the  trees  on  the  hills.  Miners  seeing  him 
hurrying  along  with  white  intense  face  shook  their 
heads.  "He's  cracked,"  they  said.  "He'll  hurt 
some  one  yet." 

Beaut  saw  Mike  hurrying  about  the  streets.  Once 
encountering  him  in  the  pine  woods  above  the  town 
he  walked  with  him  and  tried  to  get  him  to  talk. 
In  his  pockets  Mike  carried  books  and  pamphlets. 
He  set  traps  in  the  woods  and  brought  home  rab 
bits  and  squirrels.  He  got  together  collections  of 
birds'  eggs  which  he  sold  to  women  in  the  trains 
that  stopped  at  Coal  Creek  and  when  he  caught 
birds  he  stuffed  them,  put  beads  in  their  eyesockets 
and  sold  them  also.  He  proclaimed  himself  an 
anarchist  and  like  Cracked  McGregor  muttered  to 
himself  as  he  hurried  along. 

One  day  Beaut  came  upon  Mike  Hartnet  read- 
Si 


52  MARCHING  MEN 

ing  a  book  as  he  sat  on  a  log  overlooking  the  town. 
A  shock  ran  through  McGregor  when  he  looked 
over  the  shoulder  of  the  man  and  saw  what  book  he 
read.  "It  is  strange,"  he  thought,  "that  this  fel 
low  should  stick  to  the  same  book  that  fat  old 
Weeks  makes  his  living  by." 

Beaut  sat  on  the  log  beside  Hartnet  and  watched 
him.  The  reading  man  looked  up  and  nodded  ner 
vously  then  slid  along  the  log  to  the  farther  end. 
Beaut  laughed.  He  looked  down  at  the  town  and 
then  at  the  frightened  nervous  book-reading  man 
on  the  log.  An  inspiration  came  to  him. 

"If  you  had  the  power,  Mike,  what  would  you  do 
to  Coal  Creek?"  he  asked. 

The  nervous  man  jumped  and  tears  came  into  his 
eyes.  He  stood  before  the  log  and  spread  out  his 
hands.  "I  would  go  among  men  like  Christ,"  he 
cried,  pitching  his  voice  forward  like  one  address 
ing  an  audience.  "Poor  and  humble,  I  would  go 
teaching  them  of  love."  Spreading  out  his  hands 
like  one  pronouncing  a  benediction  he  shouted, 
"Oh  men  of  Coal  Creek,  I  would  teach  you  love  and 
the  destruction  of  evil." 

Beaut  jumped  up  from  the  log  and  strode  before 
the  trembling  figure.  He  was  strangely  moved. 
Grasping  the  man  he  thrust  him  back  upon  the  log. 
His  own  voice  rolled  down  the  hillside  in  a  great 
roaring  laugh.  "Men  of  Coal  Creek,"  he  shouted, 
mimicking  the  earnestness  of  Hartnet,  "listen  to  the 


MARCHING  MEN  53 

voice  of  McGregor.  I  hate  you.  I  hate  you  be 
cause  you  jeered  at  my  father  and  at  me  and  be 
cause  you  cheated  my  mother,  Nance  McGregor. 
I  hate  you  because  you  are  weak  and  disorganised 
like  cattle.  I  would  like  to  come  among  you  teach 
ing  the  power  of  force.  I  would  like  to  slay  you 
one  by  one,  not  with  weapons  but  with  my  naked 
fists.  If  they  have  made  you  work  like  rats  buried 
in  a  hole  they  are  right.  It  is  man's  right  to  do 
what  he  can.  Get  up  and  fight.  Fight  and  I'll  get 
on  the  other  side  and  you  can  fight  me.  I'll  help 
drive  you  back  into  your  holes." 

Beaut  ceased  speaking  and  jumping  over  the  logs 
ran  down  the  road.  Among  the  first  of  the  miner's 
houses  he  stopped  and  laughed  awkwardly.  "I  am 
cracked  also,"  he  thought,  "shouting  at  emptiness  on 
a  hillside."  He  went  on  in  a  reflective  mood,  won 
dering  what  power  had  taken  hold  of  him.  "I 
would  like  a  fight — a  fight  against  odds,"  he  thought. 
"I  will  stir  things  up  when  I  am  a  lawyer  in  the 
city." 

Mike  Hartnet  came  running  down  the  road  at  the 
heels  of  McGregor.  "Don't  tell,"  he  plead  trem 
bling.  "Don't  tell  about  me  in  the  town.  They 
will  laugh  and  call  names  after  me.  I  want  to  be 
let  alone." 

Beaut  shook  himself  loose  from  the  detaining 
hand  and  went  on  down  the  hill.  When  he  had 
passed  out  of  sight  of  Hartnet  he  sat  down  on  the 


54  MARCHING  MEN 

ground.  For  an  hour  he  looked  at  the  town  in  the 
valley  and  thought  of  himself.  He  was  half  proud, 
half  ashamed  of  the  thing  that  had  happened. 

In  the  blue  eyes  of  McGregor  anger  flashed  quick 
and  sudden.  Upon  the  streets  of  Coal  Creek  he 
walked,  swinging  along,  his  great  body  inspiring 
fear.  His  mother  grown  grave  and  silent  worked 
in  the  offices  of  the  mines.  Again  she  had  a  habit 
of  silence  in  her  own  home  and  looked  at  her  son, 
half  fearing  him.  All  day  she  worked  in  the  mine 
offices  and  in  the  evening  sat  silently  in  a  chair  on 
the  porch  before  her  house  and  looked  down  into 
Main  Street. 

Beaut  McGregor  did  nothing.  He  sat  in  the 
dingy  little  pool  room  and  talked  with  the  black- 
haired  boy  or  walked  over  the  hills  swinging  a  stick 
in  his  hand  and  thinking  of  the  city  to  which  he 
would  presently  go  to  start  his  career.  As  he 
walked  in  the  streets  women  stopped  to  look  at  him, 
thinking  of  the  beauty  and  strength  of  his  maturing 
body.  The  miners  passed  him  in  silence  hating  him 
and  dreading  his  wrath.  Walking  among  the  hills 
he  thought  much  of  himself.  "I  am  capable  of  any 
thing,"  he  thought,  lifting  his  head  and  looking  at 
the  towering  hills,  "I  wonder  why  I  stay  on  here." 

When  he  was  eighteen  Beaut's  mother  fell  ill. 
All  day  she  lay  on  her  back  in  bed  in  the  room 
above  the  empty  bakery.  Beaut  shook  himself  out 


MARCHING  MEN  55 

of  his  waking  stupor  and  went  about  seeking  work. 
He  had  not  felt  that  he  was  indolent.  He  had  been 
waiting.  Now  he  bestirred  himself.  "I'll  not  go 
into  the  mines,"  he  said,  "nothing  shall  get  me  down 
there." 

He  got  work  in  a  livery  stable  cleaning  and 
feeding  the  horses.  His  mother  got  out  of  bed 
and  began  going  again  to  the  mine  offices.  Hav 
ing  started  to  work  Beaut  stayed  on,  thinking  it  but 
a  way  station  to  the  position  he  would  one  day 
achieve  in  the  city. 

In  the  stable  worked  two  young  boys,  sons  of  coal 
miners.  They  drove  travelling  men  from  the  trains 
to  farming  towns  in  valleys  back  among  the  hills 
and  in  the  evening  with  Beaut  McGregor  they  sat  on 
a  bench  before  the  barn  and  shouted  at  people  go 
ing  past  the  stable  up  the  hill. 

The  livery  stable  in  Coal  Creek  was  owned  by  a 
hunchback  named  Weller  who  lived  in  the  city  and 
went  home  at  night.  During  the  day  he  sat  about 
the  stable  talking  to  red-haired  McGregor.  "You're 
a  big  beast,"  he  said  laughing.  "You  talk  about 
going  away  to  the  city  and  making  something  of 
yourself  and  still  you  stay  on  here  doing  nothing. 
You  want  to  quit  this  talking  about  being  a  lawyer 
and  become  a  prize  fighter.  Law  is  a  place  for 
brains  not  muscles."  He  walked  through  the  stables 
leaning  his  head  to  one  side  and  looking  up  at  the 
big  fellow  who  brushed  the  horses.  McGregor 


56  MARCHING  MEN 

watched  him  and  grinned.    "I'll  show  you,"  he  said. 

The  hunchback  was  pleased  when  he  strutted 
before  McGregor.  He  had  heard  men  talk  of  the 
strength  and  the  evil  temper  of  his  stableman  and 
it  pleased  him  to  have  so  fierce  a  fellow  cleaning 
the  horses.  At  night  in  the  city  he  sat  under  the 
lamp  with  his  wife  and  boasted.  "I  make  him  step 
about,"  he  said. 

In  the  stable  the  hunchback  kept  at  the  heels  of 
McGregor.  "And  there's  something  else,"  he  said, 
putting  his  hand  in  his  pockets  and  raising  him 
self  on  his  toes.  "You  look  out  for  that  under 
taker's  daughter.  She  wants  you.  If  she  gets  you 
there  will  be  no  law  study  but  a  place  in  the  mines 
for  you.  You  let  her  alone  and  begin  taking  care 
of  your  mother." 

Beaut  went  on  cleaning  the  horses  and  thinking 
of  what  the  hunchback  had  said.  He  thought  there 
was  sense  to  it.  He  also  was  afraid  of  the  tall  pale 
girl.  Sometimes  when  he  looked  at  her  a  pain  shot 
through  him  and  a  combination  of  fear  and  desire 
gripped  him.  He  walked  away  from  it  and  went 
free  as  he  went  free  from  the  life  in  the  darkness 
down  in  the  mine.  "He  has  a  kind  of  genius  for 
keeping  away  from  the  things  he  don't  like,"  said 
the  liveryman,  talking  to  Uncle  Charlie  Wheeler  in 
the  sun  before  the  door  of  the  post  office. 

One  afternoon  the  two  boys  who  worked  in  the 
livery  stable  with  McGregor  got  him  drunk.  The 


MARCHING  MEN  57 

affair  was  a  rude  joke,  elaborately  planned.  The 
hunchback  had  stayed  in  the  city  for  the  day  and 
no  travelling  men  got  off  the  trains  to  be  driven 
over  the  hills.  In  the  afternoon  hay  brought  over 
the  hill  from  the  fruitful  valley  was  being  put  into 
the  loft  of  the  barn  and  between  loads  McGregor 
and  the  two  boys  sat  on  the  bench  by  the  stable  door. 
The  two  boys  went  to  the  saloon  and  brought  back 
beer,  paying  for  it  from  a  fund  kept  for  that  pur 
pose.  The  fund  was  the  result  of  a  system  worked 
out  by  the  two  drivers.  When  a  passenger  gave  one 
of  them  a  coin  at  the  end  of  a  day  of  driving  he 
put  it  into  the  common  fund.  When  the  fund  had 
grown  to  some  size  the  two  went  to  the  saloon  and 
stood  before  the  bar  drinking  until  it  was  spent  and 
then  came  back  to  sleep  off  their  stupor  on  the  hay 
in  the  barn.  After  a  prosperous  week  the  hunch 
back  occasionally  gave  them  a  dollar  for  the  fund. 

Of  the  beer  McGregor  drank  but  one  foaming 
glass.  For  all  his  idling  about  Coal  Creek  he  had 
never  before  tasted  beer  and  it  was  strong  and 
bitter  in  his  mouth.  He  threw  up  his  head  and 
gulped  it  then  turned  and  walked  toward  the  rear 
of  the  stable  to  conceal  the  tears  that  the  taste  of 
the  stuff  had  forced  into  his  eyes. 

The  two  drivers  sat  on  the  bench  and  laughed. 
The  drink  they  had  given  Beaut  was  a  horrible  mess 
concocted  by  the  laughing  bartender  at  their  sug- 


58  MARCHING  MEN 

gestion.     "We  will  get  the  big  fellow  drunk  and 
hear  him  roar,"  the  bartender  had  said. 

As  he  walked  toward  the  back  of  the  stable  a 
convulsive  nausea  seized  Beaut.  He  stumbled  and 
pitched  forward,  cutting  his  face  on  the  floor. 
Then  he  rolled  over  on  his  back  and  groaned  and  a 
little  stream  of  blood  ran  down  his  cheek. 

The  two  boys  jumped  up  from  the  bench  and 
ran  toward  him.  They  stood  looking  at  his  pale 
lips.  Fear  seized  them.  They  tried  to  lift  him  but 
he  fell  from  their  arms  and  lay  again  on  the  stable 
floor,  white  and  motionless.  Filled  with  fright  they 
ran  from  the  stable  and  through  Main  Street.  "We 
must  get  a  doctor,"  they  said  as  they  hurried  along. 
"He  is  mighty  sick — that  fellow." 

In  the  doorway  leading  to  the  rooms  over  the  un 
dertaker's  shop  stood  the  tall  pale  girl.  One  of 
the  running  boys  stopped  and  addressed  her,  "Your 
red-head,"  he  shouted,  "is  blind  drunk  lying  on  the 
stable  floor.  He  has  cut  his  head  and  is  bleeding." 

The  tall  girl  ran  down  the  street  to  the  offices  of 
the  mine.  With  Nance  McGregor  she  hurried  to 
the  stable.  The  store  keepers  along  Main  Street 
looked  out  of  their  doors  and  saw  the  two  women 
pale  and  with  set  faces  half-carrying  the  huge  form 
of  Beaut  McGregor  along  the  street  and  in  at  the 
door  of  the  bakery. 


MARCHING  MEN  59 

At  eight  o'clock  that  evening  Beaut  McGregor, 
his  legs  still  unsteady,  his  face  white,  climbed 
aboard  a  passenger  train  and  passed  out  of  the  life 
of  Coal  Creek.  On  the  seat  beside  him  a  bag  con 
tained  all  his  clothes.  In  his  pocket  lay  a  ticket  to 
Chicago  and  eighty-five  dollars,  the  last  of  Cracked 
McGregor's  savings.  He  looked  out  of  the  car  win 
dow  at  the  little  woman  thin  and  worn  standing 
alone  on  the  station  platform  and  a  great  wave  of 
anger  passed  through  him.  'Til  show  them,"  he 
muttered.  The  woman  looked  at  him  and  forced  a 
smile  to  her  lips.  The  train  began  to  move  into 
the  west.  Beaut  looked  at  his  mother  and  at  the 
deserted  streets  of  Coal  Creek  and  put  his  head 
down  upon  his  hands  and  in  the  crowded  car  be 
fore  the  gaping  people  wept  with  joy  that  he  had 
seen  the  last  of  youth.  He  looked  back  at  Coal 
Creek,  full  of  hate.  Like  Nero  he  might  have 
wished  that  all  of  the  people  of  the  town  had  but 
one  head  so  that  he  might  have  cut  it  off  with  a 
sweep  of  a  sword  or  knocked  it  into  the  gutter  with 
one  swinging  blow. 


BOOK  II 


CHAPTER  I 

IT  was  late  in  the  summer  of  1893  when  Mc 
Gregor  came  to  Chicago,  an  ill  time  for  boy  or  man 
in  that  city.  The  big  exposition  of  the  year  before 
had  brought  multiplied  thousands  of  restless  labour 
ers  into  the  city  and  its  leading  citizens,  who  had 
clamoured  for  the  exposition  and  had  loudly  talked 
of  the  great  growth  that  was  to  come,  did  not  know 
what  to  do  with  the  growth  now  that  it  had  come. 
The  depression  that  followed  on  the  heels  of  the 
great  show  and  the  financial  panic  that  ran  over 
the  country  in  that  year  had  set  thousands  of  hun 
gry  men  to  wait  dumbly  on  park  benches  poring 
over  want  advertisements  in  the  daily  papers  and 
looking  vacantly  at  the  lake  or  had  driven  them  to 
tramp  aimlessly  through  the  streets,  filled  with  fore 
bodings. 

In  time  of  plenty  a  great  American  city  like  Chi 
cago  goes  on  showing  a  more  or  less  cheerful  face 
to  the  world  while  in  nooks  and  crannies  down 
side-streets  and  alleys  poverty  and  misery  sit 

61 


62  MARCHING  MEN 

haunched  up  in  little  ill-smelling  rooms  breeding 
vice.  In  times  of  depression  these  creatures  crawl 
forth  and  joined  by  thousands  of  the  unemployed 
tramp  the  streets  through  the  long  nights  or  sleep 
upon  benches  in  the  parks.  In  the  alleyways  off 
Madison  Street  on  the  West  Side  and  off  State 
Street,  on  the  South  Side,  eager  women  driven  by 
want  sold  their  bodies  to  passersby  for  twenty-five 
cents.  An  advertisement  in  the  newspapers  of  one 
unfilled  job  brought  a  thousand  men  to  block  the 
streets  at  daylight  before  a  factory  door.  In  the 
crowds  men  swore  and  knocked  each  other  about. 
Working-men  driven  to  desperation  went  forth  into 
quiet  streets  and  knocking  over  citizens  took  their 
money  and  watches  and  ran  trembling  into  the  dark 
ness.  A  girl  of  Twenty-fourth  Street  was  kicked 
and  knocked  into  the  gutter  because  when  attacked 
by  thieves  she  had  but  thirty-five  cents  in  her  purse. 
A  professor  of  the  University  of  Chicago  address 
ing  his  class  said  that,  having  looked  into  the  hun 
gry  distorted  faces  of  five  hundred  men  clamouring 
for  a  position  as  dishwasher  in  a  cheap  restaurant, 
he  was  ready  to  pronounce  all  claims  to  social  ad 
vancement  in  America  a  figment  in  the  brains  of 
optimistic  fools.  A  tall  awkward  man  walking  up 
State  Street  threw  a  stone  through  the  window  of 
a  store.  A  policeman  hustled  him  through  the 
crowd.  "You'll  get  a  workhouse  sentence  for  this," 
he  said. 


MARCHING  MEN  63 

"You  fool  that's  what  I  want  I  want  to  make 
property  that  won't  employ  me  feed  me,"  said  the 
tall  gaunt  man  who,  trained  in  the  cleaner  and  more 
wholesome  poverty  of  the  frontier,  might  have  been 
a  Lincoln  suffering  for  mankind. 

Into  this  maelstrom  of  misery  and  grim  desper 
ate  want  walked  Beaut  McGregor  of  Coal  Creek — • 
huge,  graceless  of  body,  indolent  of  mind,  untrained, 
uneducated,  hating  the  world.  Within  two  days  he 
had  snatched  before  the  very  eyes  of  that  hungry 
marching  army  three  prizes,  three  places  where  a 
man  might  by  working  all  day  get  clothes  to  wear 
upon  his  back  and  food  to  put  into  his  stomach. 

In  a  way  McGregor  had  already  sensed  some- 
thing  the  realisation  of  which  will  go  far  toward 
making  any  man  a  strong  figure  in  the  world.  He 
was  not  to  be  bullied  with  words.  Orators  might 
have  preached  to  him  all  day  about  the  progress  of 
mankind  in  America,  flags  might  have  been  flapped 
and  newspapers  might  have  dinned  the  wonders  of 
his  country  into  his  brain.  He  would  only  have 
shaken  his  big  head.  He  did  not  yet  know  the 
whole  story  of  how  men,  coming  out  of  Europe  and 
given  millions  of  square  miles  of  black  fertile  land 
mines  and  forests,  have  failed  in  the  challenge  given 
them  by  fate  and  have  produced  out  of  the  stately 
order  of  nature  only  the  sordid  disorder  of  man. 
McGregor  did  not  know  the  fullness  of  the  tragic 
story  of  his  race.  He  only  knew  that  the  men  he 


64  MARCHING  MEN 

had  seen  were  for  the  most  part  pigmies.  On  the 
train  coming  to  Chicago  a  change  had  come  over 
him.  The  hatred  of  Coal  Creek  that  burned  in  him 
had  set  fire  to  something  else.  He  sat  looking  out 
of  the  car  window  at  the  stations  running  past  dur 
ing  the  night  and  the  following  day  at  the  corn 
fields  of  Indiana,  making  his  plans.  In  Chicago 
he  meant  to  do  something.  Coming  from  a  com 
munity  where  no  man  arose  above  a  condition  of  si 
lent  brute  labour  he  meant  to  step  up  into  the  light 
of  power.  Filled  with  hatred  and  contempt  of  man 
kind  he  meant  that  mankind  should  serve  him. 
Raised  among  men  who  were  but  men  he  meant  to 
be  a  master. 

And  his  equipment  was  better  than  he  knew.  In 
a  disorderly  haphazard  world  hatred  is  as  effective 
an  impulse  to  drive  men  forward  to  success  as  love 
and  high  hope.  It  is  a  world-old  impulse  sleep 
ing  in  the  heart  of  man  since  the  day  of  Cain.  In 
a  way  it  rings  true  and  strong  above  the  hideous 
jangle  of  modern  life.  Inspiring  fear  it  usurps 
power. 

McGregor  was  without  fear.  He  had  not  yet 
met  his  master  and  looked  with  contempt  upon  the 
men  and  women  he  had  known.  Without  knowing 
it  he  had,  besides  a  huge  body  hard  as  adamant,  a 
clear  and  lucid  brain.  The  fact  that  he  hated  Coal 
Creek  and  thought  it  horrible  proved  his  keenness. 
It  was  horrible.  Well  might  Chicago  have  trembled 


MARCHING  MEN  65 

and  rich  men  strolling  in  the  evening  along  Michi 
gan  Boulevard  have  looked  fearfully  about  as  this 
huge  red  fellow,  carrying  the  cheap  handbag  and 
staring  with  his  blue  eyes  at  the  restless  moving 
mobs  of  people,  walked  for  the  first  time  through  its 
streets.  In  his  very  frame  there  was  the  possibility 
of  something,  a  blow,  a  shock,  a  thrust  out  of  the 
lean  soul  of  strength  into  the  jelly-like  fleshiness  of 
weakness. 

In  the  world  of  men  nothing  is  so  rare  as  a 
knowledge  of  men.  Christ  himself  found  the  mer 
chants  hawking  their  wares  even  on  the  floor  of  the 
temple  and  in  his  naive  youth  was  stirred  to  wrath 
and  drove  them  through  the  door  like  flies.  And 
history  has  represented  him  in  turn  as  a  man  of 
peace  so  that  after  these  centuries  the  temples  are 
again  supported  by  the  hawking  of  wares  and  his 
fine  boyish  wrath  is  forgotten.  In  France  after  the 
great  revolution  and  the  babbling  of  many  voices 
talking  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  it  wanted  but 
a  short  and  very  determined  man  with  an  instinctive 
knowledge  of  drums,  of  cannons  and  of  stirring 
words  to  send  the  same  babblers  screaming  across 
open  spaces,  stumbling  through  ditches  and  pitching 
headlong  into  the  arms  of  death.  In  the  interest 
of  one  who  believed  not  at  all  in  the  brotherhood  of 
man  they  who  had  wept  at  the  mention  of  the  word 
brotherhood  died  fighting  brothers. 

In  the  heart  of  all  men  lies  sleeping  the  love  of 


66  MARCHING  MEN 

order.  How  to  achieve  order  out  of  our  strange 
jumble  of  forms,  out  of  democracies  and  monarch 
ies,  dreams  and  endeavours  is  the  riddle  of  the  Uni 
verse  and  the  thing  that  in  the  artist  is  called  the 
passion  for  form  and  for  which  he  also  will  laugh 
in  the  face  of  death  is  in  all  men.  By  grasping 
that  fact  Caesar,  Alexander,  Napoleon  and  our 
own  Grant  have  made  heroes  of  the  dullest  clods 
that  walk  and  not  a  man  of  all  the  thousands  who 
marched  with  Sherman  to  the  sea  but  lived  the  rest 
of  his  life  with  a  something  sweeter,  braver  and 
finer  sleeping  in  his  soul  than  will  ever  be  produced 
by  the  reformer  scolding  of  brotherhood  from  a 
soap-box.  The  long  march,  the  burning  of  the 
throat  and  the  stinging  of  the  dust  in  the  nostrils, 
the  touch  of  shoulder  against  shoulder,  the  quick 
bond  of  a  common,  unquestioned,  instinctive  passion 
that  bursts  in  the  orgasm  of  battle,  the  forgetting  of 
words  and  the  doing  of  the  thing,  be  it  winning  bat 
tles  or  destroying  ugliness,  the  passionate  mass 
ing  of  men  for  accomplishment — these  are  the  signs, 
if  they  ever  awake  in  our  land,  by  which  you  may 
know  you  have  come  to  the  days  of  the  making  of 
men. 

In  Chicago  in  1893  and  in  the  men  who  went  aim 
lessly  seeking  work  in  the  streets  of  Chicago  in 
that  year  there  were  none  of  these  signs.  Like 
the  coal  mining  town  from  which  Beaut  McGregor 
had  come,  the  city  lay  sprawling  and  ineffective 


MARCHING  MEN  67 

before  him,  a  tawdry  disorderly  dwelling  for  mil 
lions  of  men,  built  not  for  the  making  of  men  but 
for  the  making  of  millions  by  a  few  odd  meat-pack 
ers  and  drygoods  merchants. 

With  a  slight  lifting  of  his  great  shoulders  Mc 
Gregor  sensed  these  things  although  he  could  not 
have  expressed  his  sense  of  them  and  the  hatred 
and  contempt  of  men,  born  of  his  youth  in  the  min 
ing  town,  was  rekindled  by  the  sight  of  city  men 
wandering  afraid  and  bewildered  through  the 
streets  of  their  own  city. 

Knowing  nothing  of  the  customs  of  the  unem 
ployed  McGregor  did  not  walk  the  streets  looking 
for  signs  marked  "Men  Wanted."  He  did  not  sit 
on  park  benches  studying  want  advertisements,  the 
want  advertisements  that  so  often  proved  but  bait 
put  out  by  suave  men  up  dirty  stairways  to  glean  the 
last  few  pennies  from  pockets  of  the  needy.  Going 
along  the  street  he  swung  his  great  body  through  the 
doorways  leading  to  the  offices  of  factories.  When 
some  pert  young  man  tried  to  stop  him  he  did  not 
say  words  but  drew  back  his  fist  threateningly  and, 
glowering,  walked  in.  The  young  men  at  the  doors 
of  factories  looked  at  his  blue  eyes  and  let  him 
pass  unchallenged. 

In  the  afternoon  of  his  first  day  of  seeking  Beaut 
got  a  place  in  an  apple  warehouse  on  the  North 
Side,  the  third  place  offered  him  during  the  day  and 
the  one  that  he  accepted.  The  chance  came  to  him 


68  MARCHING  MEN 

through  an  exhibition  of  strength.  Two  men,  old 
and  bent,  struggled  to  get  a  barrel  of  apples  from 
the  sidewalk  up  to  a  platform  that  ran  waist  high 
along  the  front  of  the  warehouse.  The  barrel  had 
rolled  to  the  sidewalk  from  a  truck  standing  in  the 
gutter.  The  driver  of  the  truck  stood  with  his 
hands  on  his  hips,  laughing.  A  German  with  blond 
hair  stood  'upon  the  platform  swearing  in  broken 
English.  McGregor  stood  upon  the  sidewalk  and 
looked  at  the  two  men  who  were  struggling  with  the 
barrel.  A  feeling  of  immense  contempt  for  their 
feebleness  shone  in  his  eyes.  Pushing  them  aside  he 
grasped  the  barrel  and  with  a  great  heave  sent  it 
up  onto  the  platform  and  spinning  through  an  open 
doorway  into  the  receiving  room  of  the  warehouse. 
The  two  workmen  stood  on  the  sidewalk  smiling 
sheepishly.  Across  the  street  a  group  of  city  fire 
men  who  lounged  in  the  sun  before  an  engine  house 
clapped  their  hands.  The  truck  driver  turned  and 
prepared  to  send  another  barrel  along  the  plank  ex 
tending  from  the  truck  across  the  sidewalk  to  the 
warehouse  platform.  At  a  window  in  the  upper 
part  of  the  warehouse  a  grey  head  protruded  and 
a  sharp  voice  called  down  to  the  tall  German.  "Hey 
Frank,  hire  that  'husky'  and  let  about  six  of  the 
dead  ones  you've  got  around  here  go  home." 

McGregor  jumped  upon  the  platform  and  walked 
in  at  the  warehouse  door.  The  German  followed, 
inventorying  the  size  of  the  red-haired  giant  with 


MARCHING  MEN  69 

something  like  disapproval.  His  look  seemed  to 
say,  "I  like  strong  fellows  but  you're  too  strong." 
He  took  the  discomfiture  of  the  two  feeble  work 
men  on  the  sidewalk  as  in  some  way  reflecting  upon 
himself.  The  two  men  stood  in  the  receiving  room 
and  looked  at  each  other.  A  bystander  might  have 
thought  them  preparing  to  fight. 

And  then  a  freight  elevator  came  slowly  down 
from  the  upper  part  of  the  warehouse  and  from  it 
jumped  a  small  grey-haired  man  with  a  yard  stick 
in  his  hand.  He  had  a  sharp  restless  eye  and  a 
short  stubby  grey  beard.  Striking  the  floor  with 
a  bound  he  began  to  talk.  "We  pay  two  dollars 
for  nine  hours'  work  here — begin  at  seven,  quit  at 
five.  Will  you  come?"  Without  waiting  for  an 
answer  he  turned  to  the  German.  "Tell  those  two 
old  'rummies'  to  get  their  time  and  get  out  of 
here,"  he  said,  turning  again  and  looking  expect 
antly  at  McGregor. 

McGregor  liked  the  quick  little  man  and  grinned 
with  approval  of  his  decisiveness.  He  nodded  his 
assent  to  the  proposal  and,  looking  at  the  German, 
laughed.  The  little  man  disappeared  through  a 
door  leading  to  an  office  and  McGregor  walked  out 
into  the  street.  At  a  corner  he  turned  and  saw  the 
German  standing  on  the  platform  before  the  ware 
house  looking  after  him.  "He  is  wondering 
whether  or  not  he  can  whip  me,"  thought  Mc 
Gregor. 


70  MARCHING  MEN 

In  the  apple  warehouse  McGregor  worked  for 
three  years,  rising  during  his  second  year  to  be  fore 
man  and  replacing  the  tall  German.  The  German 
expected  trouble  with  McGregor  and  was  deter 
mined  to  make  short  work  of  him.  He  had  been 
offended  by  the  action  of  the  gray-haired  superin 
tendent  in  hiring  the  man  and  felt  that  a  preroga 
tive  belonging  to  himself  had  been  ignored.  All 
day  he  followed  McGregor  with  his  eyes,  trying 
to  calculate  the  strength  and  courage  in  the  huge 
body.  He  knew  that  hundreds  of  hungry  men 
walked  the  streets  and  in  the  end  decided  that  the 
need  of  work  if  not  the  spirit  of  the  man  would 
make  him  submissive.  During  the  second  week  he 
put  the  question  that  burned  in  his  brain  to  the  test. 
He  followed  McGregor  into  a  dimly-lighted  upper 
room  where  barrels  of  apples,  piled  to  the  ceiling, 
left  only  narrow  ways  for  passage.  Standing  in  the 
semi-darkness  he  shouted,  calling  the  man  who 
worked  among  the  apple  barrels  a  foul  name,  "I 
won't  have  you  loafing  in  there,  you  red-haired 
bastard,"  he  shouted. 

McGregor  said  nothing.  He  was  not  offended 
by  the  vileness  of  the  name  the  German  had  called 
him  and  took  it  merely  as  a  challenge  that  he  had 
been  expecting  and  that  he  meant  to  accept.  With 
a  grim  smile  on  his  lips  he  walked  toward  the 
German  and  when  but  one  apple  barrel  lay  be- 


MARCHING  MEN  71 

tween  them  reached  across  and  dragged  the  fore 
man  sputtering  and  swearing  down  the  passage 
way  to  a  window  at  the  end  of  the  room.  By  the 
window  he  stopped  and  putting  his  hand  to  the 
throat  of  the  struggling  man  began  to  choke  him 
into  submission.  Blows  fell  on  his  face  and  body. 
Struggling  terribly  the  German  kicked  McGregor's 
legs  with  desperate  energy.  Although  his  ears  rang 
with  the  hammer-like  blows  that  fell  about  his  neck 
and  cheeks  McGregor  stool  silent  under  the  storm. 
His  blue  eyes  gleamed  with  hatred  and  the  mus 
cles  of  his  great  arms  danced  in  the  light  from  the 
window.  As  he  looked  into  the  protruding  eyes  of 
the  writhing  German  he  thought  of  fat  Reverend 
Minot  Weeks  of  Coal  Creek  and  added  an  extra 
twitch  to  the  flesh  between  his  fingers.  When  a  ges 
ture  of  submission  came  from  the  man  against  the 
wall  he  stepped  back  and  let  go  his  grip.  The 
German  dropped  to  the  floor.  Standing  over  him 
McGregor  delivered  his  ultimatum.  "You  report 
this  or  try  to  get  me  fired  and  I'll  kill  you  out 
right,"  he  said.  "I'm  going  to  stay  here  on  this 
job  until  I  get  ready  to  leave  it.  You  can  tell  me 
what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it  but  when  you  speak 
to  me  again  say  'McGregor' — Mr.  McGregor,  that's 
my  name." 

The  German  got  to  his  feet  and  began  walking 
down  the  passageway  between  the  rows  of  piled 
barrels.  As  he  went  he  helped  himself  along  with 


72  MARCHING  MEN 

his  hands.  McGregor  went  back  to  work.  After 
the  retreating  form  of  the  German  he  shouted,  "Get 
a  new  place  when  you  can  Dutch,  I'll  be  taking  this 
job  away  from  you  when  I'm  ready  for  it." 

That  evening  as  McGregor  walked  to  the  car  he 
saw  the  little  grey-haired  superintendent  standing 
waiting  for  him  before  a  saloon.  The  man  made  a 
sign  and  McGregor  walked  across  and  stood  beside 
him.  They  went  together  into  the  saloon  and  stood 
leaning  against  the  bar  and  looked  at  each  other.  A 
smile  played  about  the  lips  of  the  little  man.  "What 
have  you  been  doing  to  Frank?"  he  asked. 

McGregor  turned  to  the  bartender  who  stood 
waiting  before  him.  He  thought  that  the  super 
intendent  intended  to  try  to  patronise  him  by  buy 
ing  him  a  drink  and  he  did  not  like  the  thought. 
"What  will  you  have  ?  I'll  take  a  cigar  for  mine," 
he  said  quickly,  defeating  the  superintendent's  plan 
by  being  the  first  to  speak.  When  the  bartender 
brought  the  cigars  McGregor  paid  for  them  and 
walked  out  at  the  door.  He  felt  like  one  playing 
a  game.  "If  Frank  meant  to  bully  me  into  sub 
mission  this  man  also  means  something." 

On  the  sidewalk  before  the  saloon  McGregor 
stopped.  "Look  here,"  he  said,  turning  and  facing 
the  superintendent,  "I'm  after  Frank's  place.  I'm 
going  to  learn  the  business  as  fast  as  I  can.  I  won't 
put  it  up  to  you  to  fire  him.  When  I  get  ready  for 
the  place  he  won't  be  there." 


MARCHING  MEN  73 

A  light  flashed  into  the  eyes  of  the  little  man. 
He  held  the  cigar  McGregor  had  paid  for  as  though 
about  to  throw  it  into  the  street.  "How  far  do  you 
think  you  can  go  with  your  big  fists  ?"  he  asked,  his 
voice  rising. 

McGregor  smiled.  He  thought  he  had  earned 
another  victory  and  lighting  his  cigar  held  the  burn 
ing  match  before  the  little  man.  "Brains  are  in 
tended  to  help  fists,"  he  said,  "I've  got  both." 

The  superintendent  looked  at  the  burning  match 
and  at  the  cigar  between  his  fingers.  "If  I  don't 
which  will  you  use  on  me?"  he  asked. 

McGregor  threw  the  match  into  the  street.  "Aw ! 
don't  bother  asking,"  he  said,  holding  out  another 
match. 

McGregor  and  the  superintendent  walked  along 
the  street.  "I  would  like  to  fire  you  but  I  won't. 
Some  day  you'll  run  that  warehouse  like  a  clock," 
said  the  superintendent. 

McGregor  sat  in  the  street-car  and  thought  of 
his  day.  It  had  been  he  felt  a  day  of  two  battles. 
First  the  direct  brutal  battle  of  fists  in  the  passage 
way  and  then  this  other  battle  with  the  superin 
tendent.  He  thought  he  had  won  both  fights.  Of 
the  fight  with  the  tall  German  he  thought  little.  He 
had  expected  to  win  that.  The  other  was  different. 
The  superintendent  he  felt  had  wanted  to  patronise 
him,  patting  him  on  the  back  and  buying  him  drinks. 
Instead  he  had  patronised  the  superintendent.  A 


74  MARCHING  MEN 

battle  had  gone  on  in  the  brains  of  the  two  men  and 
he  had  won.  He  had  met  a  new  kind  of  man,  one 
who  did  not  live  by  the  raw  strength  of  his  muscles 
and  he  had  given  a  good  account  of  himself.  The 
conviction  that  he  had,  besides  a  good  pair  of  fists,  a 
good  brain  swept  in  on  him  glorifying  him.  He 
thought  of  the  sentence,  "Brains  are  intended  to 
help  fists,"  and  wondered  how  he  had  happened  to 
think  of  it. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  street  in  which  McGregor  lived  in  Chicago 
was  called  Wycliff  Place,  after  a  family  of  that 
name  that  had  once  owned  the  land  thereabout. 
The  street  was  complete  in  its  hideousness.  Noth 
ing  more  unlovely  could  be  imagined.  Given  a 
free  hand  an  indiscriminate  lot  of  badly  trained  car 
penters  and  bricklayers  had  builded  houses  beside 
the  cobblestone  road  that  touched  the  fantastic  in 
their  unsightlmess  and  inconvenience. 

The  great  west  side  of  Chicago  has  hundreds  of 
such  streets  and  the  coal  mining  town  out  of  which 
McGregor  had  come  was  more  inspiring  as  a  place 
in  which  to  live.  As  an  unemployed  young  man, 
not  much  given  to  chance  companionships,  Beaut 
had  spent  many  long  evenings  wandering  alone  on 
the  hillsides  above  his  home  town.  There  was  a 
kind  of  dreadful  loveliness  about  the  place  at  night. 
The  long  black  valley  with  its  dense  shroud  of 
smoke  that  rose  and  fell  and  formed  itself  into  fan 
tastic  shapes  in  the  moonlight,  the  poor  little  houses 
clinging  to  the  hillside,  the  occasional  cry  of  a 
woman  being  beaten  by  a  drunken  husband,  the 
glare  of  the  coke  fires  and  the  rumble  of  coal  cars 

75 


76  MARCHING  MEN 

being  pushed  along  the  railroad  tracks,  all  of  these 
made  a  grim  and  rather  inspiring  impression  on 
the  young  man's  mind  so  that  although  he  hated  the 
mines  and  the  miners  he  sometimes  paused  in  his 
night  wanderings  and  stood  with  his  great  should 
ers  lifted,  breathing  deeply  and  feeling  things  he 
had  no  words  in  him  to  express. 

In  Wycliff  Place  McGregor  got  no  such  reac 
tions.  Foul  dust  filled  the  air.  All  day  the  street 
rumbled  and  roared  under  the  wheels  of  trucks  and 
light  hurrying  delivery  wagons.  Soot  from  the 
factory  chimneys  was  caught  up  by  the  wind  and 
having  been  mixed  with  powdered  horse  manure 
from  the  roadway  flew  into  the  eyes  and  the  nostrils 
of  pedestrians.  Always  a  babble  of  voices  went  on. 
At  a  corner  saloon  teamsters  stopped  to  have  their 
drinking  cans  filled  with  beer  and  stood  about 
swearing  and  shouting.  In  the  evening  women  and 
children  went  back  and  forth  from  their  houses 
carrying  beer  in  pitchers  from  the  same  saloon. 
Dogs  howled  and  fought,  drunken  men  reeled  along 
the  sidewalk  and  the  women  of  the  town  appeared 
in  their  cheap  finery  and  paraded  before  the  idlers 
about  the  saloon  door. 

The  woman  who  rented  the  room  to  McGregor 
boasted  to  him  of  Wycliff  blood.  It  was  that  she 
told  him  that  had  brought  her  to  Chicago  from  her 
home  at  Cairo,  Illinois.  "The  place  was  left  to  me 
and  not  knowing  what  else  to  do  with  it  I  came 


MARCHING  MEN  77 

here  to  live,"  she  said.  She  explained  to  him  that 
the  Wycliffs  had  been  people  of  note  in  the  early 
history  of  Chicago.  The  huge  old  house  with  the 
cracked  stone  steps  and  the  ROOMS  TO  RENT 
sign  in  the  window  had  once  been  their  family 
seat. 

The  history  of  this  woman  was  characteristic  of 
the  miss-fire  quality  of  much  of  American  life.  She 
was  at  bottom  a  wholesome  creature  who  should 
have  lived  in  a  neat  frame  house  in  a  village  and 
tended  a  garden.  On  Sunday  she  should  have 
dressed  herself  with  care  and  gone  off  to  sit  in  a 
country  church  with  her  hands  crossed  and  her  soul 
at  rest. 

The  thought  of  owning  a  house  in  the  city  had 
however  paralysed  her  brain.  The  house  itself  was 
worth  a  certain  number  of  thousands  of  dollars  and 
her  mind  could  not  rise  above  that  fact,  so  her  good 
broad  face  had  become  grimy  with  city  dirt  and  her 
body  weary  from  the  endless  toil  of  caring  for 
roomers.  On  summer  evenings  she  sat  on  the  steps 
before  her  house  clad  in  some  bit  of  Wycliff  finery 
taken  from  a  trunk  in  the  attic  and  when  a  lodger 
came  out  at  the  door  she  looked  at  him  wistfully 
and  said,  "On  such  a  night  as  this  you  could  hear 
the  whistles  on  the  river  steamers  in  Cairo." 

McGregor  lived  in  a  small  room  at  the  end  of  a 
hall  on  the  second  floor  of  the  Wycliff  house.  The 
windows  of  the  room  looked  down  into  a  dirty  little 


78  MARCHING  MEN 

court  almost  surrounded  by  brick  warehouses.  The 
room  was  furnished  with  a  bed,  a  chair  that  was 
always  threatening  to  come  to  pieces  and  a  desk 
with  weak  carved  legs. 

In  this  room  sat  McGregor  night  after  night 
striving  to  realise  his  Coal  Creek  dream  of  training 
his  mind  and  making  himself  of  some  account  in 
the  world.  From  seven-thirty  until  nine-thirty  he 
sat  at  a  desk  in  a  night  school.  From  ten  until 
midnight  he  read  in  his  room.  He  did  not  think  of 
his  surroundings,  of  the  vast  disorder  of  life  about 
him,  but  tried  with  all  his  strength  to  bring  some 
thing  like  order  and  purpose  into  his  own  mind  and 
his  own  life. 

In  the  little  court  under  the  window  lay  heaps 
of  discarded  newspaper  tossed  about  by  the  wind. 
There  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  walled  in  by  the 
brick  warehouse  and  half  concealed  under  piles  of 
chair  legs  cans  and  broken  bottles,  lay  two  logs  in 
their  time  no  doubt,  a  part  of  the  grove  that  once 
lay  about  the  house.  The  neighbourhood  had  passed 
so  rapidly  from  country  estate  to  homes  and  from 
homes  to  rented  lodgings  and  huge  brick  ware 
houses  that  the  marks  of  the  lumberman's  axe  still 
showed  in  the  butts  of  the  logs. 

McGregor  seldom  saw  the  little  court  except 
when  its  ugliness  was  refined  and  glossed  over  by 
darkness  or  by  the  moonlight.  On  hot  evenings  he 
laid  clown  his  book  and  leaning  far  out  of  the  win- 


MARCHING  MEN  79 

dow  rubbed  his  eyes  and  watched  the  discarded 
newspapers,  worried  by  the  whirlpools  of  wind  in 
the  court,  run  here  and  there,  dashing  against  the 
warehouse  walls  and  vainly  trying  to  escape  over  the 
roof.  The  sight  fascinated  him  and  brought  a 
thought  into  his  mind.  He  began  to  think  that  the 
lives  of  most  of  the  people  about  him  were  much 
like  the  dirty  newspaper  harried  by  adverse  winds 
and  surrounded  by  ugly  walls  of  facts.  The  thought 
drove  him  from  the  window  to  renewed  effort 
among  his  books.  "I'll  do  something  here  anyway. 
I'll  show  them,"  he  growled. 

One  living  in  the  house  with  McGregor  during 
those  first  years  in  the  city  might  have  thought  his 
life  stupid  and  commonplace  but  to  him  it  did  not 
seem  so.  It  was  for  the  miner's  son  a  time  of  sud 
den  and  tremendous  growth.  Filled  with  confidence 
in  the  strength  and  quickness  of  his  body  he  was 
beginning  to  have  also  confidence  in  the  vigour 
and  clearness  of  his  brain.  In  the  warehouse  he 
went  about  with  eyes  and  ears  open,  devising  in 
his  mind  new  methods  of  moving  goods,  watching 
the  men  at  work,  marking  the  shirkers,  preparing 
to  pounce  upon  the  tall  German's  place  as  fore 
man. 

The  superintendent  of  the  warehouse,  not  under 
standing  the  turn  of  the  talk  with  McGregor  on  the 
sidewalk  before  the  saloon,  decided  to  like  him  and 
laughed  when  they  met  in  the  warehouse.  The 


8o  MARCHING  MEN 

tall  German  maintained  a  policy  of  sullen  silence 
and  went  to  laborious  lengths  to  avoid  addressing 
him. 

In  his  room  at  night  McGregor  began  to  read 
law,  reading  each  page  over  and  over  and  think 
ing  of  what  he  had  read  through  the  next  day  as  he 
rolled  and  piled  apple  barrels  in  the  passages  in  the 
warehouse. 

McGregor  had  an  aptitude  and  an  appetite  for 
facts.  He  read  law  as  another  and  gentler  nature 
might  have  read  poetry  or  old  legends.  What  he 
read  at  night  he  remembered  and  thought  about 
during  the  day.  He  had  no  dream  of  the  glories 
of  the  law.  The  fact  that  these  rules  laid  down  by 
men  to  govern  their  social  organisation  were  the 
result  of  ages  of  striving  toward  perfection  did  not 
greatly  interest  him  and  he  only  thought  of  them  as 
weapons  with  which  to  attack  and  defend  in  the 
battle  of  brains  he  meant  presently  to  fight.  His 
mind  gloated  in  anticipation  of  the  battle. 


CHAPTER  III 

AND  then  a  new  element  asserted  itself  in  the 
life  of  McGregor.  One  of  the  hundreds  of  disin 
tegrating  forces  that  attack  strong  natures,  striv 
ing  to  scatter  their  force  in  the  back  currents  of 
life,  attacked  him.  His  big  body  began  to  feel  with 
enervating  persistency  the  call  of  sex. 

In  the  house  in  Wycliff  Place  McGregor  passed 
as  a  mystery.  By  keeping  silence  he  won  a  repu 
tation  for  wisdom.  The  clerks  in  the  hall  bedrooms 
thought  him  a  scientist.  The  woman  from  Cairo 
thought  him  a  theological  student.  Down  the  hall  a 
pretty  girl  with  large  black  eyes  who  worked  in  a 
department  store  down  town  dreamed  of  him  at 
night.  When  in  the  evening  he  banged  the  door  to 
his  room  and  strode  down  the  hallway  going  to  the 
night  school  she  sat  in  a  chair  by  the  open  door  of 
her  room.  As  he  passed  she  raised  her  eyes  and 
looked  at  him  boldly.  When  he  returned  she  was 
again  by  the  door  and  again  she  looked  boldly  at  him. 

In  his  room,  after  the  meetings  with  the  black- 
eyed  girl  McGregor  found  difficulty  in  keeping  his. 
mind  on  the  reading.  He  felt  as  he  had  felt  with 
the  pale  girl  on  the  hillside  beyond  Coal  Creek, 

81 


82  MARCHING  MEN 

With  her  as  with  the  pale  girl  he  felt  the  need  of 
defending  himself.  He  began  to  make  it  a  practice 
to  hurry  along  past  her  door. 

The  girl  in  the  hall  bedroom  thought  constantly 
of  McGregor.  When  he  had  gone  to  night  school 
another  young  man  of  the  house  who  wore  a 
Panama  hat  came  from  the  floor  above  and,  put 
ting  his  hands  on  the  door  frames  of  her  room, 
stood  looking  at  her  and  talking.  In  his  lips  he 
held  a  cigarette,  which  when  he  talked  hung  limply 
from  the  corner  of  his  mouth. 

This  young  man  and  the  black-eyed  girl  kept  up 
a  continuous  stream  of  comments  on  the  doings  of 
red-haired  McGregor.  Begun  by  the  young  man, 
who  hated  him  because  of  his  silence,  the  subject 
was  kept  alive  by  the  girl  who  wanted  to  talk  of 
McGregor. 

On  Saturday  nights  the  young  man  and  the  girl 
sometimes  went  together  to  the  theatre.  One 
night  in  the  summer  when  they  had  returned  to  the 
front  of  the  house  the  girl  stopped.  "Let's  see  what 
the  big  red-head  is  doing,"  she  said. 

Going  around  the  block  they  stole  in  the  dark 
ness  down  an  alleyway  and  stood  in  the  little  dirty 
court  looking  up  at  McGregor  who,  with  his  feet  in 
the  window  and  a  lamp  burning  at  his  shoulder, 
sat  in  his  room  reading. 

When  they  returned  to  the  front  of  the  house 
the  black-eyed  girl  kissed  the  young  man,  closing 


MARCHING  MEN  83 

her  eyes  and  thinking  of  McGregor.  In  her  room 
later  she  lay  abed  dreaming.  She  imagined  herself 
assaulted  by  the  young  man  who  had  crept  into 
her  room  and  that  McGregor  had  come  roaring 
down  the  hall  to  snatch  him  away  and  fling  him 
outside  the  door. 

At  the  end  of  the  hallway  near  the  stairway  lead 
ing  to  the  street  lived  a  barber.  He  had  deserted 
a  wife  and  four  children  in  a  town  in  Ohio  and 
to  prevent  recognition  had  grown  a  black  beard. 
Between  this  man  and  McGregor  a  companionship 
had  sprung  up  and  they  went  together  on  Sunday 
mornings  to  walk  in  the  park.  The  black  bearded 
man  called  himself  Frank  Turner. 

Frank  Turner  had  a  passion.  Through  the  eve 
nings  and  on  Sunday  afternoons  he  sat  in  his  room 
making  violins.  He  worked  with  a  knife,  glue, 
pieces  of  glass  and  sand  paper  and  spent  his  earn 
ings  for  ingredients  for  the  making  of  varnishes. 
When  he  got  hold  of  a  piece  of  wood  that  seemed 
an  answer  to  his  prayers  he  took  it  to  McGregor's 
room  and  holding  it  up  to  the  light  talked  of  what 
he  would  do  with  it.  Sometimes  he  brought  a 
violin  and  sitting  in  the  open  window  tested  the 
quality  of  its  tone.  One  evening  he  took  an  hour 
of  McGregor's  time  to  talk  of  the  varnish  of  Cre 
mona  and  to  read  to  him  from  a  worn  little  book 
concerning  the  old  Italian  masters  of  violin  making. 


84  MARCHING  MEN 

On  a  bench  in  the  park  sat  Turner,  the  maker  of 
violins,  the  man  who  dreamed  of  the  rediscovery 
of  the  varnish  of  Cremona,  talking  to  McGregor, 
son  of  the  Pennsylvania  miner. 

It  was  a  Sunday  afternoon  and  the  park  was 
vibrant  with  life.  All  day  the  street  cars  had  been 
unloading  Chicagoans  at  the  park  entrance.  They 
came  in  pairs  and  in  parties,  young  men  with  their 
sweethearts  and  fathers  with  families  at  their  heels. 
Now  at  the  end  of  the  day  they  continued  to  come,  a 
steady  stream  of  humanity  flowing  along  the  gravel 
walk  past  the  bench  where  the  two  men  sat  in  talk. 
Through  the  stream  and  crossing  it  went  another 
stream  homeward  bound.  Babies  cried.  Fathers 
called  to  the  children  at  play  on  the  grass.  Cars 
coming  to  the  park  filled  went  away  filled. 

McGregor  looked  about  him  and  thought  of  him 
self  and  of  the  restless  moving  people.  In  him  there 
was  none  of  that  vague  fear  of  the  multitude  com 
mon  to  many  solitary  souls.  His  contempt  of  men 
and  of  the  lives  lived  by  men  reinforced  his  native 
boldness.  The  odd  little  rounding  of  the  shoulders 
of  even  the  athletic  young  men  made  him  straighten 
with  pride  his  own  shoulders  and  fat  and  lean,  tall 
and  short,  he  thought  of  all  men  as  counters  in 
some  vast  games  at  which  he  was  presently  to  be  a 
master  player. 

The  passion  for  form,  that  strange  intuitive 
power  that  many  men  have  felt  and  none  but  the 


MARCHING  MEN  85 

masters  of  human  life  have  understood,  had  begun 
to  awaken  in  him.  Already  he  had  begun  to  sense 
out  the  fact  that  for  him  law  was  but  an  incident 
in  some  vast  design  and  he  was  altogether  un 
touched  by  the  desire  for  getting  on  in  the  world, 
by  the  greedy  little  snatching  at  trifles  that  was  the 
whole  purpose  of  the  lives  of  so  many  of  the  people 
about  him.  When  somewhere  in  the  park  a  band 
began  to  play  he  nodded  his  head  up  and  down  and 
ran  his  hand  nervously  up  and  down  the  legs  of  his 
trousers.  Into  his  mind  came  the  desire  to  boast 
to  the  barber,  telling  of  the  things  he  meant  to  do 
in  the  world,  but  he  put  the  desire  away.  Instead 
he  sat  silently  blinking  his  eyes  and  wondering  at 
the  persistent  air  of  ineffectiveness  in  the  people 
who  passed.  When  a  band  went  by  playing  march 
music  and  followed  by  some  fifty  men  wearing 
white  plumes  in  their  hats  and  walking  with  self- 
conscious  awkwardness,  he  was  startled.  Among 
the  people  he  thought  there  was  a  change.  Some 
thing  like  a  running  shadow  passed  over  them.  The 
babbling  of  voices  ceased  and  like  himself  the  people 
began  to  nod  their  heads.  A  thought,  gigantic  in 
its  simplicity,  began  to  come  into  his  mind  but  was 
wiped  out  immediately  by  his  impatience  with  the 
marchers.  A  madness  to  spring  up  and  run  among 
them  knocking  them  about  and  making  them  march 
with  the  power  that  comes  of  abandonment  almost 


86  MARCHING  MEN 

lifted  him  from  the  bench.    His  mouth  twitched  and 
his  fingers  ached  for  action. 

In  and  out  among  the  trees  and  on  the  green 
spaces  moved  the  people.  Along  the  shores  of  a 
pond  sat  men  and  women  eating  the  evening  meal 
from  baskets  or  from  white  cloths  spread  on  the 
grass.  They  laughed  and  shouted  at  each  other 
and  at  the  children,  calling  them  back  from  the 
gravel  driveways  filled  with  moving  carriages. 
Beaut  saw  a  girl  throw  an  egg  shell  and  hit  a  young 
fellow  between  the  eyes,  and  then  run  laughing 
away  along  the  shore  of  the  pond.  Under  a  tree  a 
woman  nursed  a  babe,  covering  her  breasts  with  a 
shawl  so  that  just  the  black  head  of  the  babe 
showed.  Its  tiny  hand  clutched  at  the  mouth  of  the 
woman.  In  an  open  space  in  the  shadow  of  a 
building  young  men  played  baseball,  the  shouts  of 
the  spectators  rising  above  the  murmur  of  the  voices 
of  people  on  the  gravel  walk. 

A  thought  came  into  McGregor's  mind  that  he 
wanted  to  discuss  with  the  older  man.  He  was 
moved  by  the  sight  of  women  about  and  shook  him 
self  like  one  awakening  from  a  dream.  Then  he 
began  looking  at  the  ground  and  kicking  up  the 
gravel  with  his  foot.  "Look  here,"  he  said,  turning 
to  the  barber,  "what  is  a  man  to  do  about  women, 
about  getting  what  he  wants  from  the  women?" 

The  barber  seemed  to  understand.    "It  has  come 


MARCHING  MEN  87 

to  that  then  ?"  he  asked  and  looked  quickly  up.  He 
lighted  a  pipe  and  sat  looking  at  the  people.  It  was 
then  he  told  McGregor  of  the  wife  and  four  chil 
dren  in  the  Ohio  town,  describing  the  little  brick 
house  and  the  garden  and  the  coop  for  chickens  at 
the  back  like  one  who  lingers  over  a  place  dear  to 
his  fancy.  Something  old  and  weary  was  in  his 
voice  as  he  finished. 

"It  wasn't  a  matter  for  me  to  decide,"  he  said.  "I 
came  away  because  I  couldn't  do  anything  else. 
I'm  not  excusing  myself,  I'm  just  telling  you.  There 
was  something  messy  and  disorderly  about  it  all, 
about  my  life  with  her  and  with  them.  I  couldn't 
stand  it.  I  felt  myself  being  submerged  by  some 
thing.  I  wanted  to  be  orderly  and  to  work,  you 
see.  I  couldn't  let  violin  making  alone.  Lord,  how 
I  tried — tried  bluffing  myself  about  it — calling  it  a 
fad." 

The  barber  looked  nervously  at  McGregor  to  re 
assure  himself  of  his  interest.  "I  owned  a  shop 
on  the  main  street  of  our  town.  Back  of  it  was  a 
blacksmith  shop.  During  the  day  I  stood  by  the 
chair  in  my  shop  talking  to  men  being  shaved  about 
the  love  of  women  and  a  man's  duty  to  his  family. 
Summer  afternoons  I  went  and  sat  on  a  keg  in  the 
blacksmith  shop  and  talked  of  the  same  thing  with 
the  smith  but  all  that  did  me  no  good. 

"When  I  let  myself  go  I  dreamed  not  of  my  duty 
to  my  family  but  of  working  undisturbed  as  I  do 


88  MARCHING  MEN 

now  here  in  the  city  in  my  room  in  the  evenings 
and  on  Sundays." 

A  sharpness  came  into  the  voice  of  the  speaker. 
He  turned  to  McGregor  and  talked  vigorously  like 
one  making  a  defence.  "My  woman  was  a  good 
enough  sort,"  he  said.  "I  suppose  loving  is  an  art 
like  writing  a  book  or  drawing  pictures  or  making 
violins.  People  try  to  do  it  and  don't  succeed.  In 
the  end  we  threw  the  job  up  and  just  lived  together 
like  most  people  do.  Our  lives  got  mussy  and  mean 
ingless.  That's  how  it  was. 

"Before  she  married  me  my  wife  had  been  a 
stenographer  in  a  factory  that  made  tin  cans.  She 
liked  that  work.  She  could  make  her  fingers  dance 
along  the  keys.  When  she  read  a  book  at  home  she 
didn't  think  the  writer  amounted  to  much  if  he 
made  mistakes  about  punctuation.  Her  boss  was 
so  proud  of  her  that  he  would  brag  of  her  work  to 
visitors  and  sometimes  would  go  off  fishing  leaving 
the  running  of  the  business  in  her  hands. 

"I  don't  know  why  she  married  me.  She  was 
happier  there  and  she  is  happier  back  there  now. 
We  got  to  walking  together  on  Sunday  evenings 
and  standing  under  the  trees  on  side  streets,  kissing 
and  looking  at  each  other.  We  talked  about  a  lot 
of  things.  We  seemed  to  need  each  other.  Then 
we  got  married  and  started  living  together. 

"It  didn't  work  out.  After  we  had  been  married 
a  few  years  things  changed.  I  don't  know  why.  I 


MARCHING  MEN  89 

thought  I  was  the  same  as  I  had  been  and  I  think 
she  was.  We  used  to  sit  around  quarrelling  about  it, 
each  blaming  the  other.  Anyway  we  didn't  get 
along. 

"We  would  sit  on  the  little  front  porch  of  our 
house  in  the  evening,  she  bragging  of  the  work  she 
had  done  in  the  can  factory  and  I  dreaming  of 
quietude  and  a  chance  to  work  on  the  violins.  I 
thought  I  knew  a  way  to  increase  the  quality  and 
beauty  of  tone  and  I  had  that  idea  about  varnish  I 
have  talked  to  you  about.  I  even  dreamed  of  doing 
things  those  old  fellows  of  Cremona  didn't  do. 

"When  she  had  been  talking  of  her  work  in  the 
office  for  maybe  a  half  hour  she  would  look  up  and 
find  that  I  hadn't  been  listening.  We  would  quar 
rel.  We  even  quarrelled  before  the  children  after 
they  came.  Once  she  said  that  she  didn't  see  how 
it  would  matter  if  no  violins  had  ever  been  made 
and  that  night  I  dreamed  of  choking  her  in  bed.  I 
woke  up  and  lay  there  beside  her  thinking  of  it  with 
something  like  real  satisfaction  in  just  the  thought 
that  one  long  hard  grip  of  my  fingers  would  get  her 
out  of  my  way  for  good. 

"We  didn't  always  feel  that  way.  Every  little 
while  a  change  would  come  over  both  of  us  and  we 
would  begin  to  take  an  interest  in  each  other.  I 
would  be  proud  of  the  work  she  had  done  in  the  fac 
tory  and  would  brag  of  it  to  men  coming  into  the 
shop.  In  the  evening  she  would  be  sympathetic 


90  MARCHING  MEN 

about  the  violins  and  put  the  baby  to  bed  to  let  me 
alone  at  my  work  in  the  kitchen. 

"Then  we  would  begin  to  sit  in  the  darkness  in 
the  house  and  hold  each  other's  hands.  We  would 
forgive  things  that  had  been  said  and  play  a  sort  of 
game,  chasing  each  other  about  the  room  in  the 
darkness  and  knocking  against  the  chairs  and  laugh 
ing.  Then  we  would  begin  to  look  at  each  other 
and  kiss.  Presently  there  would  be  another  baby/' 

The  barber  threw  up  his  hands  with  a  gesture  of 
impatience.  His  voice  lost  its  softer,  reminiscent 
quality.  "Such  times  didn't  last,"  he  said.  "On 
the  whole  it  was  no  life  to  live.  I  came  away.  The 
children  are  in  a  state  institution  and  she  has  gone 
back  to  her  work  in  the  office.  The  town  hates  me. 
They  have  made  a  heroine  of  her.  I'm  here  talking 
to  you  with  these  whiskers  on  my  face  so  that  people 
from  my  town  wouldn't  know  me  if  they  came 
along.  I'm  a  barber  and  I  would  shave  them  off 
fast  enough  if  it  wasn't  for  that." 

A  woman  walking  past  looked  back  at  McGregor. 
In  her  eyes  lurked  an  invitation.  It  reminded  him 
of  something  in  the  eyes  of  the  pale  daughter  of  the 
undertaker  of  Coal  Creek.  An  uneasy  tremor  ran 
through  him.  "What  do  you  do  about  women 
now?"  he  asked. 

The  voice  of  the  smaller  man  arose  harsh  and  ex 
cited  in  the  evening  air.  "I  get  the  feeling  taken 
out  of  me  as  a  man  would  have  a  tooth  fixed,"  he 


MARCHING  MEN  91 

said.  "I  pay  money  for  the  service  and  keep  my 
mind  on  what  I  want  to  do.  There  are  plenty  of 
women  for  that,  women  who  are  good  for  that  only. 
When  I  first  came  here  I  used  to  wander  about  at 
night,  wanting  to  go  to  my  room  and  work  but 
with  my  mind  and  my  will  paralysed  by  that  feel 
ing.  I  don't  do  that  now  and  I  won't  again.  What 
I  do  many  men  do — good  men — men  who  do  good 
work.  What's  the  use  thinking  about  it  when  you 
only  run  against  a  stone  wall  and  get  hurt?" 

The  black  bearded  man  arose,  thrust  his  hands 
into  his  trousers  pockets  and  looked  about  him. 
Then  he  sat  down  again.  He  seemed  to  be  filled  with 
suppressed  excitement.  "There  is  a  big  hidden  some 
thing  going  on  in  modern  life,"  he  said,  talking  rap 
idly  and  excitedly.  "It  used  to  touch  only  the  men 
higher  up,  now  it  reaches  down  to  men  like  me — 
barbers  and  workingmen.  Men  know  about  it  but 
don't  talk  and  don't  dare  think.  Their  women  have 
changed.  Women  used  to  be  willing  to  do  anything 
for  men,  just  be  slaves  to  them.  The  best  men  don't 
ask  that  now  and  don't  want  that." 

He  jumped  to  his  feet  and  stood  over  McGregor. 
"Men  don't  understand  what's  going  on  and  don't 
care,"  he  said.  "They  are  too  busy  getting  things 
done  or  going  to  ball  games  or  quarrelling  about 
politics. 

"And  what  do  they  know  about  it  if  they  are 
fools  enough  to  think  ?  They  get  thrown  into  false 


92  MARCHING  MEN 

notions.  They  see  about  them  a  lot  of  fine  pur 
poseful  women  maybe  caring  for  their  children  and 
they  blame  themselves  for  their  vices  and  are 
ashamed.  Then  they  turn  to  the  other  women  any 
way,  shutting  their  eyes  and  going  ahead.  They 
pay  for  what  they  want  as  they  would  pay  for  a 
dinner,  thinking  no  more  of  the  women  who  serve 
them  than  they  do  of  the  waitresses  who  serve  them 
in  the  restaurants.  They  refuse  to  think  of  the  new 
kind  of  woman  that  is  growing  up.  They  know 
that  if  they  get  sentimental  about  her  they'll  get 
into  trouble  or  get  new  tests  put  to  them,  be  dis 
turbed  you  see,  and  spoil  their  work  or  their  peace 
of  mind.  They  don't  want  to  get  into  trouble  or 
be  disturbed.  They  want  to  get  a  better  job  or  en 
joy  a  ball  game  or  build  a  bridge  or  write  a  book. 
They  think  that  a  man  who  gets  sentimental  about 
any  woman  is  a  fool  and  of  course  he  is." 

"Do  you  mean  that  all  of  them  do  that?"  asked 
McGregor.  He  wasn't  upset  by  what  had  been  said. 
It  struck  him  as  being  true.  For  himself  he  was 
afraid  of  women.  It  seemed  to  him  that  a  road  was 
being  built  by  his  companion  along  which  he  might 
travel  with  safety.  He  wanted  the  man  to  go  on 
talking.  Into  his  brain  flashed  the  thought  that  if 
he  had  the  thing  to  do  over  there  would  have  been 
a  different  ending  to  the  afternoon  spent  with  the 
pale  girl  on  the  hillside. 

The  barber  sat  down  upon  the  bench.    The  flush 


MARCHING  MEN  93 

went  out  of  his  cheeks.  "Well  I  have  done  pretty 
well  myself,"  he  said,  "but  then  you  know  I  make 
violins  and  don't  think  of  women.  I've  been  in 
Chicago  two  years  and  I've  spent  just  eleven  dol 
lars.  I  would  like  to  know  what  the  average  man 
spends.  I  wish  some  fellow  would  get  the  facts 
and  publish  them.  It  would  make  people  sit  up. 
There  must  be  millions  spent  here  every  year." 

"You  see  I'm  not  very  strong  and  I  stand  all  day 
on  my  feet  in  the  barber  shop."  He  looked  at  Mc 
Gregor  and  laughed.  "The  black-eyed  girl  in  the 
hall  is  after  you,"  he  said.  "You'd  better  look  out. 
You  let  her  alone.  Stick  to  your  law  books.  You 
are  not  like  me.  You  are  big  and  red  and  strong. 
Eleven  dollars  won't  pay  your  way  here  in  Chicago 
for  no  two  years." 

McGregor  looked  again  at  the  people  moving  to 
ward  the  park  entrance  in  the  gathering  darkness. 
He  thought  it  wonderful  that  a  brain  could  think 
a  thing  out  so  clearly  and  words  express  thoughts  so 
lucidly.  His  eagerness  to  follow  the  passing  girls 
with  his  eyes  was  gone.  He  was  interested  in  the 
older  man's  viewpoint.  "And  what  about  chil 
dren?"  he  asked. 

The  older  man  sat  sideways  on  the  bench.  There 
was  a  troubled  look  in  his  eyes  and  a  suppressed 
eager  quality  in  his  voice.  "I'm  going  to  tell  you 
about  that,"  he  said.  "I  don't  want  to  keep  any 
thing  back. 


94  MARCHING  MEN 

"Look  here!"  he  demanded,  sliding  along  the 
bench  toward  McGregor  and  emphasising  his  points 
by  slapping  one  hand  down  upon  the  other.  "Ain't 
all  children  my  children?"  He  paused,  trying  to 
gather  his  scattered  thoughts  into  words.  When 
McGregor  started  to  speak  he  put  his  hand  up  as 
though  to  ward  off  a  new  thought  or  another  ques 
tion.  "I'm  not  trying  to  dodge,"  he  said.  "I'm 
trying  to  get  thoughts  that  have  been  in  my  head 
day  after  day  in  shape  to  tell.  I  haven't  tried  to 
express  them  before.  I  know  men  and  women  cling 
to  their  children.  It's  the  only  thing  they  have  left 
of  the  dream  they  had  before  they  married.  I  felt 
that  way.  It  held  me  for  a  long  time.  It  would  be 
holding  me  now  only  that  the  violins  pulled  so  hard 
at  me." 

He  threw  up  his  hand  impatiently.  "You  see  I 
had  to  find  an  answer.  I  couldn't  think  of  being  a 
skunk — running  away — and  I  couldn't  stay.  I 
wasn't  intended  to  stay.  Some  men  are  intended 
to  work  and  take  care  of  children  and  serve  women 
perhaps  but  others  have  to  keep  trying  for  a  vague 
something  all  their  lives — like  me  trying  for  a  tone 
on  a  violin.  If  they  don't  get  it  it  doesn't  matter, 
they  have  to  keep  trying. 

"My  wife  used  to  say  I'd  get  tired  of  it.  No 
woman  ever  really  understands  a  man  caring  for 
anything  except  herself.  I  knocked  that  out  of 
her." 


MARCHING  MEN  95 

The  little  man  looked  up  at  McGregor.  "Do  you 
think  I'm  a  skunk  ?"  he  asked. 

McGregor  looked  at  him  gravely.  "I  don't 
know,"  he  said.  "Go  on  and  tell  me  about  the 
children." 

"I  said  they  were  the  last  things  to  cling  to.  They 
are.  We  used  to  have  religion.  But  that's  pretty 
well  gone  now — the  old  kind.  Now  men  think 
about  children,  I  mean  a  certain  kind  of  men — the 
ones  that  have  work  they  want  to  get  on  with.  Chil 
dren  and  work  are  the  only  things  that  kind  care 
about.  If  they  have  a  sentiment  about  women  it's 
only  about  their  own — the  one  they  have  in  the 
house  with  them.  They  want  to  keep  that  one  finer 
than  they  are  themselves.  So  they  work  the  other 
feeling  out  on  the  paid  women. 

"Women  fuss  about  men  loving  children.  Much 
they  care.  It's  only  a  plan  for  demanding  adulation 
for  themselves  that  they  don't  earn.  Once,  when  I 
first  came  to  the  city,  I  took  a  place  as  servant  in  a 
wealthy  family.  I  wanted  to  stay  under  cover  until 
my  beard  grew.  Women  used  to  come  there  to  re 
ceptions  and  to  meetings  in  the  afternoon  to  talk 

about  reforms  they  were  interested  in Bah! 

They  work  and  scheme  trying  to  get  at  men.  They 
are  at  it  all  their  lives,  flattering,  diverting  us,  giv 
ing  us  false  ideas,  pretending  to  be  weak  and  uncer 
tain  when  they  are  strong  and  determined.  They 
have  no  mercy.  They  wage  war  on  us  trying  to 


96  MARCHING  MEN 

make  us  slaves.  They  want  to  take  us  captive  home 
to  their  houses  as  Caesar  took  captives  home  to 
Rome. 

"You  look  here!"  He  jumped  to  his  feet  again, 
and  shook  his  fingers  at  McGregor.  "You  just  try 
something.  You  try  being  open  and  frank  and 
square  with  a  woman — any  woman — as  you  would 
with  a  man.  Let  her  live  her  own  life  and  ask  her 
to  let  you  live  yours.  You  try  it.  She  won't.  She 
will  die  first." 

He  sat  down  again  upon  the  bench  and  shook  his 
head  back  and  forth.  "Lord  how  I  wish  I  could 
talk !"  he  said.  "I'm  making  a  muddle  of  this  and 
I  wanted  to  tell  you.  Oh,  how  I  wanted  to  tell  you ! 
It's  part  of  my  idea  that  a  man  should  tell  a  boy 
all  he  knows.  We've  got  to  quit  lying  to  them." 

McGregor  looked  at  the  ground.  He  was  pro 
foundly  and  deeply  moved  and  interested  as  he  had 
never  before  been  moved  by  anything  but  hate. 

Two  women  coming  along  the  gravel  walk 
stopped  under  a  tree  and  looked  back.  The  barber 
smiled  and  raised  his  hat.  When  they  smiled  back 
at  him  he  rose  and  started  toward  them.  "Come 
on  boy,"  he  whispered  behind  his  hand  to  McGregor. 
"Let's  get  them." 

When  McGregor  looked  up  the  scene  before  his 
eyes  infuriated  him.  The  smiling  barber  with  his 
hat  in  his  hand,  the  two  women  waiting  under  the 
tree,  the  look  of  half-guilty  innocence  on  the  faces 


MARCHING  MEN  97 

of  all  of  them,  stirred  a  blind  fury  in  his  brain.  He 
sprang  forward,  clutching  the  shoulder  of  Turner 
with  his  hand.  Whirling  him  about  he  threw  him 
to  his  hands  and  knees.  "Get  out  of  here  you  fe 
males!"  he  roared  at  the  women  who  ran  off  in. 
terror  down  the  wallc. 

The  barber  sat  again  upon  the  bench  beside  Mc 
Gregor.  He  rubbed  his  hands  together  to  brush 
the  bits  of  gravel  out  of  the  flesh.  "What's  got 
wrong  with  you  ?"  he  asked. 

McGregor  hesitated.  He  wondered  how  he 
should  tell  what  was  in  his  mind.  "Everything  in 
its  place,"  he  said  finally.  "I  wanted  to  go  on  with 
our  talk." 

Lights  flashed  out  of  the  darkness  of  the  park. 
The  two  men  sat  on  the  bench  thinking  each  his 
own  thoughts. 

"I  want  to  take  some  work  out  of  the  clamps 
to-night,"  the  barber  said,  looking  at  his  watch. 
Together  the  two  men  walked  along  the  street. 
"Look  here,"  said  McGregor.  "I  didn't  mean  to 
hurt  you.  Those  two  women  that  came  up  and 
interfered  with  what  we  were  working  out  made 
me  furious." 

"Women  always  interfere,"  said  the  barber. 
"They  raise  hell  with  men."  His  mind  ran  out  and 
began  to  play  with  the  world-old  problem  of  the 
sexes.  "If  a  lot  of  women  fall  in  the  fight  with  us 
men  and  become  our  slaves — serving  us  as  the  paid 


98  MARCHING  MEN 

women  do — need  they  fuss  about  it?  Let  them  be 
game  and  try  to  help  work  it  out  as  men  have  been 
game  and  have  worked  and  thought  through  ages  of 
perplexity  and  defeat." 

The  barber  stopped  on  the  street  corner  to  fill 
and  light  his  pipe.  "Women  can  change  everything 
when  they  want  to,"  he  said,  looking  at  McGregor 
and  letting  the  match  burn  out  in  his  ringers.  "They 
can  have  motherhood  pensions  and  room  to  work 
out  their  own  problem  in  the  world  or  anything  else 
that  they  really  want.  They  can  stand  up  face  to 
face  with  men.  They  don't  want  to.  They  want  to 
enslave  us  with  their  faces  and  their  bodies.  They 
want  to  carry  on  the  old,  old  weary  fight."  He 
tapped  McGregor  on  the  arm.  j"If  a  few  of  us — 
wanting  with^all  our  might  to  get  something  done — 
beat  them  at  their  own  game,  don't  we  deserve  the 
victory?"  he  asked. 

"But  sometimes  I  think  I  would  like  a  woman  to 
live  with,  you  know,  just  to  sit  and  talk  with  me," 
said  McGregor. 

The  barber  laughed.  Puffing  at  his  pipe  he 
walked  down  the  street.  "To  be  sure!  To  be 
sure !"  he  said.  "I  would.  Any  man  would.  I  like 
to  sit  in  the  room  for  a  spell  in  the  evening  talking 
to  you  but  I  would  hate  to  give  up  violin  making 
and  be  bound  all  my  life  to  serve  you  and  your  pur 
poses  just  the  same." 

In  the  hallway  of  their  own  house  the  barber 


MARCHING  MEN  99 

spoke  to  McGregor  as  he  looked  down  the  hallway 
to  where  the  door  of  the  black  eyed  girl's  room  had 
just  crept  open.  "You  let  women  alone,"  he  said; 
"when  you  feel  you  can't  stay  away  from  them  any 
longer  you  come  and  talk  it  over  with  me." 

McGregor  nodded  and  went  along  the  hallway 
to  his  own  room.  In  the  darkness  he  stood  by  the 
window  and  looked  down  into  the  court.  The  feel 
ing  of  hidden  power,  the  ability  to  rise  above  the 
mess  into  which  modern  life  had  sunk  that  had 
come  to  him  in  the  park,  returned  and  he  walked 
nervously  about.  When  finally  he  sat  down  upon  a 
chair  and  leaning  forward  put  his  head  in  his  hands 
he  felt  like  one  who  has  started  on  a  long  journey 
through  a  strange  and  dangerous  country  and  who 
has  unexpectedly  come  upon  a  friend  going  the 
same  way. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  people  of  Chicago  go  home  from  their  work 
at  evening — drifting  they  go  in  droves,  hurrying 
along.  It  is  a  startling  thing  to  look  closely  at  them. 
The  people  have  bad  mouths.  Their  mouths  are 
slack  and  the  jaws  do  not  hang  right.  The  mouths 
are  like  the  shoes  they  wear.  The  shoes  have  be 
come  run  down  at  the  corners  from  too  much 
pounding  on  the  hard  pavements  and  the  mouths 
have  become  crooked  from  too  much  weariness  of 
soul. 

Something  is  wrong  with  modern  American  life 
and  we  Americans  do  not  want  to  look  at  it.  We 
much  prefer  to  call  ourselves  a  great  people  and  let 
it  go  at  that. 

It  is  evening  and  the  people  of  Chicago  go  home 
from  work.  Clatter,  clatter,  clatter,  go  the  heels  on 
the  hard  pavements,  jaws  wag,  the  wind  blows  and 
dirt  drifts  and  sifts  through  the  masses  of  the  peo 
ple.  Every  one  has  dirty  ears.  The  stench  in  the 
street  cars  is  horrible.  The  antiquated  bridges  over 
the  rivers  are  packed  with  people.  The  suburban 
trains  going  away  south  and  west  are  cheaply  con 
structed  and  dangerous.  A  people  calling  itself 

100 


MARCHING  MEN  101 

great  and  living  in  a  city  also  called  great  go  to 
their  houses  a  mere  disorderly  mass  of  humans 
cheaply  equipped.  Everything  is  cheap.  When  the 
people  get  home  to  their  houses  they  sit  on  cheap 
chairs  before  cheap  tables  and  eat  cheap  food.  They 
have  given  their  lives  for  cheap  things.  The  poorest 
peasant  of  one  of  the  old  countries  is  surrounded 
by  more  beauty.  His  very  equipment  for  living  has 
more  solidity. 

The  modern  man  is  satisfied  with  what  is  cheap 
and  unlovely  because  he  expects  to  rise  in  the  world. 
He  has  given  his  life  to  that  dreary  dream  and  he  is 
teaching  his  children  to  follow  the  same  dream. 
McGregor  was  touched  by  it.  Being  confused  by 
the  matter  of  sex  he  had  listened  to  the  advice  of 
the  barber  and  meant  to  settle  things  in  the  cheap 
way.  One  evening  a  month  after  the  talk  in  the 
park  he  hurried  along  Lake  Street  on  the  West  Side 
with  that  end  in  view.  It  was  near  eight  o'clock 
and  growing  dark  and  McGregor  should  have  been 
at  the  night  school.  Instead  he  walked  along  the 
street  looking  at  the  ill-kept  frame  houses.  A  fever 
burned  in  his  blood.  An  impulse,  for  the  moment 
stronger  than  the  impulse  that  kept  him  at  work 
over  books  night  after  night  there  in  the  big  dis 
orderly  city  and  as  yet  stronger  than  any  new  im 
pulse  toward  a  vigorous  compelling  march  through 
life,  had  hold  of  him.  His  eyes  stared  into  the  win 
dows.  He  hurried  along  filled  with  a  lust  that 

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RIVERSIDE 


102  MARCHING  MEN 

stultified  his  brain  and  will.  A  woman  sitting  at 
the  window  of  a  little  frame  house  smiled  and  beck 
oned  to  him. 

McGregor  walked  along  the  path  leading  to  the 
little  frame  house.  The,j)ath  ran  through  a  squalid 
yard.  It  was  a  foul  place  like  the  court  under  his 
window  behind  the  house  in  Wycliff  Place.  Here 
also  discoloured  papers  worried  by  the  wind  ran 
about  in  crazy  circles.  McGregor's  heart  pounded 
and  his  mouth  felt  dry  and  unpleasant.  He  won 
dered  what  he  should  say  and  how  he  should  say  it 
when  he  came  into  the  presence  of  the  woman.  He 
wished  there  were  some  one  to  be  hit  with  his  fist. 
He  didn't  want  to  make  love,  he  wanted  relief.  He 
would  have  much  preferred  a  fight. 

The  veins  in  McGregor's  neck  began  to  swell  and 
as  he  stood  in  the  darkness  before  the  door  of  the 
house  he  swore.  He  stared  up  and  down  the 
street  but  the  sky,  the  sight  of  which  might  have 
helped  him,  was  hidden  from  view  by  the  structure 
of  an  elevated  railroad.  Pushing  open  the  door 
of  the  house  he  stepped  in.  In  the  dim  light  he 
could  see  nothing  but  a  form  sprang  out  of  the 
darkness  and  a  pair  of  powerful  arms  pinned  his 
hands  to  his  sides.  McGregor  looked  quickly  about. 
A  man  huge  as  himself  held  him  tightly  against 
the  door.  He  had  one  glass  eye  and  a  stubby  black 
beard  and  in  the  half  light  looked  sinister  and  dan 
gerous.  The  hand  of  the  woman  who  had  beckoned 


MARCHING  MEN  103 

to  him  from  the  window  fumbled  in  McGregor's 
pockets  and  came  out  clutching  a  little  roll  of 
money.  Her  face,  set  now  and  ugly  like  the  man's, 
looked  up  at  him  from  under  the  arms  of  her  ally. 

In  a  moment  McGregor's  heart  stopped  pounding 
and  the  dry  unpleasant  taste  went  out  of  his  mouth. 
He  felt  relieved  and  glad  at  this  sudden  turn  to  the 
affair. 

With  a  quick  upward  snap  of  his  knees  into  the 
stomach  of  the  man  who  had  held  him  McGregor 
freed  himself.  A  swinging  blow  to  the  neck  sent 
his  assailant  groaning  to  the  floor.  McGregor 
sprang  across  the  room.  In  the  corner  by  the  bed 
he  caught  the  woman.  Clutching  her  by  the  hair 
he  whirled  her  about.  "Hand  over  that  money," 
he  said  fiercely. 

The  woman  put  up  her  hands  and  plead  with  him. 
The  grip  of  his  hands  in  her  hair  brought  the  tears 
to  her  eyes.  She  thrust  the  roll  of  bills  into  his 
hands  and  waited,  trembling,  thinking  he  intended 
to  kill  her. 

A  new  feeling  swept  over  McGregor.  The 
thought  of  having  come  into  the  house  at  the  invita 
tion  of  this  woman  was  revolting  to  him.  He  won 
dered  how  he  could  have  been  such  a  beast.  As  he 
stood  in  the  dim  light  thinking  of  this  and  looking 
at  the  woman  he  became  lost  in  thought  and  won 
dered  why  the  idea  given  him  by  the  barber,  that 
had  seemed  so  clear  and  sensible,  now  seemed  so 


104  MARCHING  MEN 

foolish.  His  eyes  stared  at  the  woman  as  his  mind 
returned  to  the  black-bearded  barber  talking  on  the 
park  bench  and  he  was  seized  with  a  blind  fury,  a 
fury  not  directed  at  the  people  in  the  foul  little  room 
but  at  himself  and  his  own  blindness.  Again  a  great 
hatred  of  the  disorder  of  life  took  hold  of  him  and 
as  though  all  of  the  disorderly  people  of  the  world 
were  personified  in  her  he  swore  and  shook  the 
woman  as  a  dog  might  have  shaken  a  foul  rag. 

"Sneak.  Dodger.  Mussy  fool,"  he  muttered, 
thinking  of  himself  as  a  giant  attacked  by  some 
nauseous  beast.  The  woman  screamed  with  terror. 
Seeing  the  look  on  her  assailant's  face  and  mistak 
ing  the  meaning  of  his  words  she  trembled  and 
thought  again  of  death.  Reaching  under  the  pillow 
on  the  bed  she  got  another  roll  of  bills  and  thrust 
that  also  into  McGregor's  hands.  "Please  go,"  she 
plead.  "We  were  mistaken.  We  thought  you  were 
some  one  else." 

McGregor  strode  to  the  door  past  the  man  on 
the  floor  who  groaned  and  rolled  about.  He  walked 
around  the  corner  to  Madison  Street  and  boarded  a 
car  for  the  night  school.  Sitting  in  the  car  he 
counted  the  money  in  the  roll  thrust  into  his  hand 
by  the  kneeling  woman  and  laughed  so  that  the  peo 
ple  in  the  car  looked  at  him  in  amazement.  "Turner 
has  spent  eleven  dollars  among  them  in  two  years 
and  I  have  got  twenty-seven  dollars  in  one  night," 
he  thought.  He  jumped  off  the  car  and  walked 


MARCHING  MEN  105 

along  under  the  street  lights  striving  to  think 
things  out.  "I  can't  depend  on  any  one,"  he  mut 
tered.  "I  have  to  make  my  own  way.  The  barber 
is  as  confused  as  the  rest  of  them  and  he  doesn't 
know  it.  There  is  a  way  out  of  the  confusion  and 
I'm  going  to  find  it,  but  I'll  have  to  do  it  alone. 
I  can't  take  any  one's  word  for  anything." 


CHAPTER   V 

THE  matter  of  McGregor's  attitude  toward 
women  and  the  call  of  sex  was  not  of  course  set 
tled  by  the  fight  in  the  house  in  Lake  Street.  He 
was  a  man  who,  even  in  the  days  of  his  great  crude- 
ness,  appealed  strongly  to  the  mating  instinct  in 
women  and  more  than  once  his  purpose  was  to  be 
shaken  and  his  mind  disturbed  by  the  forms,  the 
faces  and  the  eyes  of  women. 

McGregor  thought  he  had  settled  the  matter. 
He  forgot  the  black-eyed  girl  in  the  hallway  and 
thought  only  of  advancement  in  the  warehouse  and 
of  study  in  his  room  at  night.  Now  and  then  he 
took  an  evening  off  and  went  for  a  walk  through 
the  streets  or  in  one  of  the  parks. 

In  the  streets  of  Chicago,  under  the  night  lights, 
among  the  restless  moving  people  he  was  a  figure  to 
be  remembered.  Sometimes  he  did  not  see  the  peo 
ple  at  all  but  went  swinging  along  in  the  same  spirit 
in  which  he  had  walked  in  the  Pennsylvania  hills. 
He  was  striving  to  get  a  hold  of  some  elusive  qual 
ity  in  life  that  seemed  to  be  forever  out  of  reach. 
He  did  not  want  to  be  a  lawyer  or  a  warehouseman. 
What  did  he  want?  Along  the  street  he  went  try- 

106 


MARCHING  MEN  107 

ing  to  make  up  his  mind  and  because  his  was  not  a 
gentle  nature  his  perplexity  drove  him  to  anger  and 
he  swore. 

Up  and  down  Madison  Street  he  went  striding 
along,  his  lips  muttering  words.  In  a  corner  saloon 
some  one  played  a  piano.  Groups  of  girls  passed 
laughing  and  talking.  He  came  to  the  bridge  that 
led  over  the  river  into  the  loop  district  and  then 
turned  restlessly  back.  On  the  sidewalks  along 
Canal  Street  he  saw  strong-bodied  men  loitering 
before  cheap  lodging  houses.  Their  clothing  was 
filthy  with  long  wear  and  there  was  no  light  of  de 
termination  in  their  faces.  In  the  little  fine  inter 
stices  of  the  cloth  of  Which  their  clothes  were  made 
was  gathered  the  filth  of  the  city  in  which  they 
lived  and  in  the  stuff  of  their  natures  the  filth  and 
disorder  of  modern  civilisation  had  also  found 
lodging. 

On  walked  McGregor  looking  at  man-made 
things  and  the  flame  of  anger  within  burned 
stronger  and  stronger.  He  saw  the  drifting  clouds 
of  people  of  all  nations  that  wander  at  night  in  Hal- 
stead  Street  and  turning  into  a  side  street  saw  also 
the  Italians,  Poles  and  Russians  that  at  evening 
gather  on  the  sidewalks  before  tenements  in  that 
district. 

The  desire  in  McGregor  for  some  kind  of  ac 
tivity  became  a  madness.  His  body  shook  with  the 
Strength  of  his  desire  to  end  the  vast  disorder  of 


io8  MARCHING  MEN 

life.  With  all  the  ardour  of  youth  he  wanted  to 
see  if  with  the  strength  of  his  arm  he  could  shake 
mankind  out  of  its  sloth.  A  drunken  man  passed 
and  following  him  came  a  large  man  with  a  pipe  in 
his  mouth.  The  large  man  did  not  walk  with  any 
suggestion  of  power  in  his  legs.  He  shambled 
along.  He  was  like  a  huge  child  with  fat  cheeks 
and  great  untrained  body,  a  child  without  muscles 
and  hardness,  clinging  to  the  skirts  of  life. 

McGregor  could  not  bear  the  sight  of  the  big 
ungainly  figure.  The  man  seemed  to  personify  all 
of  the  things  against  which  his  soul  was  in  revolt 
and  he  stopped  and  stood  crouched,  a  ferocious  light 
burning  in  his  eyes. 

Into  the  gutter  rolled  the  man  stunned  by  the 
force  of  the  blow  dealt  him  by  the  miner's  son. 
He  crawled  on  his  hands  and  knees  and  cried  for 
help.  His  pipe  had  rolled  away  into  the  darkness. 
McGregor  stood  on  the  sidewalk  and  waited.  A 
crowd  of  men  standing  before  a  tenement  house 
started  to  run  toward  him.  Again  he  crouched.  He 
prayed  that  they  would  come  on  and  let  him  fight 
them  also.  In  anticipation  of  a  great  struggle  joy 
shone  in  his  eyes  and  his  muscles  twitched. 

And  then  the  man  in  the  gutter  got  to  his  feet  and 
ran  away.  The  men  who  had  started  to  run  to 
ward  him  stopped  and  turned  back.  McGregor 
walked  on,  his  heart  heavy  with  the  sense  of  defeat. 
He  was  a  little  sorry  for  the  man  he  had  struck  and 


who  had  made  so  ridiculous  a  figure  crawling  about 
on  his  hands  and  knees  and  he  was  more  perplexed 
than  ever. 

McGregor  tried  again  to  solve  the  problem  of 
women.  He  had  been  much  pleased  by  the  outcome 
of  the  affair  in  the  little  frame  house  and  the  next 
day  bought  law  books  with  the  twenty-seven  dollars 
thrust  into  his  hand  by  the  frightened  woman. 
Later  he  stood  in  his  room  stretching  his  great  body 
like  a  lion  returned  from  the  kill  and  thought  of 
the  little  black-bearded  barber  in  the  room  at  the 
end  of  the  hall  stooping  over  his  violin,  his  mind 
busy  with  the  attempt  to  justify  himself  because 
he  would  not  face  one  of  life's  problems.  The  feel 
ing  of  resentment  against  the  man  had  gone.  He 
thought  of  the  course  laid  out  for  himself  by  that 
philosopher  and  laughed.  "There  is  something 
about  it  to  avoid,  like  giving  yourself  up  to  digging 
in  the  dirt  under  the  ground,"  he  told  himself. 

McGregor's  second  adventure  began  on  a  Satur 
day  night  and  again  he  let  himself  be  led  into  it  by 
the  barber.  The  night  was  hot  and  the  younger 
man  sat  in  his  room  filled  with  a  desire  to  go  forth 
and  explore  the  city.  The  quiet  of  the  house,  the 
distant  rumble  of  street  cars,  the  sound  of  a  band 
playing  far  down  the  street  disturbed  and  diverted 
his  mind.  He  wished  that  he  might  take  a  stick  in 
his  hands  and  go  forth  to  prowl  among  the  hills  as 


no  MARCHING  MEN 

he  had  gone  on  such  nights  in  his  youth  in  the  Penn 
sylvania  town. 

The  door  to  his  room  opened  and  the  barber  came 
in.  In  his  hand  he  held  two  tickets.  He  sat  on  the 
window  sill  to  explain. 

"There  is  a  dance  in  a  hall  on  Monroe  Street/' 
said  the  barber  excitedly.  "I  have  two  tickets  here. 
A  politician  sold  them  to  the  boss  in  the  shop  where 
I  work."  The  barber  threw  back  his  head  and 
laughed.  To  his  mind  there  was  something  de 
licious  in  the  thought  of  the  boss  barber  being  forced 
by  the  politicians  to  buy  dance  tickets.  "They  cost 
two  dollars  each,"  he  cried  and  shook  with  laughter. 
"You  should  have  seen  my  boss  squirm.  He  didn't 
want  the  tickets  but  was  afraid  not  to  take  them. 
The  politician  could  make  trouble  for  him  and  he 
knew  it.  You  see  we  make  a  hand-book  on  the 
races  in  the  shop  and  that  is  against  the  law.  The 
politician  could  make  trouble  for  us.  The  boss  paid 
out  the  four  dollars  swearing  under  his  breath  and 
when  the  politician  had  gone  out  he  threw  them  at 
me.  'There,  take  them/  he  shouted,  'I  don't  want 
the  rotten  things.  Is  a  man  a  horse  trough  at  which 
every  beast  can  stop  to  drink  ?' ' 

McGregor  and  the  barber  sat  in  the  room  laugh 
ing  at  the  boss  barber  who  had  smilingly  bought  the 
tickets  while  consumed  with  inward  wrath.  The 
barber  urged  McGregor  to  go  with  him  to  the  dance. 
"We  will  make  a  night  of  it,"  he  said.  "We  will 


MARCHING  MEN  in 

see  women  there — two  that  I  know.  They  live  up 
stairs  over  a  grocery  store.  I  have  been  with  them. 
They  will  open  your  eyes.  They  are  a  kind  of 
women  you  haven't  known,  bold  and  clever  and 
good  fellows  too." 

McGregor  got  up  and  pulled  his  shirt  over  his 
head.  A  wave  of  feverish  excitement  ran  over  his 
body.  "We  shall  see  about  this,"  he  said,  "we  shall 
see  if  this  is  another  wrong  trail  you  are  starting 
me  on.  You  go  to  your  room  and  get  ready.  I  am 
going  to  fix  myself  up." 

In  the  dance  hall  McGregor  sat  on  a  seat  by  the 
wall  with  one  of  the  two  women  lauded  by  the 
barber  and  a  third  one  who  was  frail  and  bloodless. 
To  him  the  adventure  had  been  a  failure.  The 
swing  of  the  dance  music  struck  no  answering 
chord  in  him.  He  saw  the  couples  on  the  floor 
clasped  in  each  other's  arms,  writhing  and  turning, 
swaying  back  and  forth,  looking  into  each  other's 
eyes  and  turned  aside  wishing  himself  back  in  his 
room  among  the  law  books. 

The  barber  talked  to  two  of  the  women,  bantering 
them.  McGregor  thought  the  conversation  inane 
and  trivial.  It  skirted  the  edge  of  things  and  ran 
off  into  vague  references  to  other  times  and  adven 
tures  of  which  he  knew  nothing. 

The  barber  danced  away  with  one  of  the  women. 
She  was  tall  and  the  head  of  the  barber  barely 
passed  her  shoulder.  His  black  beard  shone  against 


H2  MARCHING  MEN 

her  white  dress.  The  two  women  sat  beside  him 
and  talked.  McGregor  gathered  that  the  frail  wom 
an  was  a  maker  of  hats.  Something  about  her  at 
tracted  him  and  he  leaned  against  the  wall  and 
looked  at  her,  not  hearing  the  talk. 

A  youth  came  up  and  took  the  other  woman 
away.  From  across  the  hall  the  barber  beckoned 
to  him. 

A  thought  flashed  into  his  mind.  This  woman 
beside  him  was  frail  and  thin  and  bloodless  like  the 
women  of  Coal  Creek.  A  feeling  of  intimacy  with 
her  came  over  him.  He  felt  as  he  had  felt  concern 
ing  the  tall  pale  girl  of  Coal  Creek  when  they  to 
gether  had  climbed  the  hill  to  the  eminence  that 
looked  down  into  the  valley  of  farms. 


CHAPTER   VI 

EDITH  CARSON  the  milliner,  whom  fate  had 
thrown  into  the  company  of  McGregor,  was  a  frail 
woman  of  thirty-four  and  lived  alone  in  two  rooms 
at  the  back  of  her  millinery  store.  Her  life  was 
almost  devoid  of  colour.  On  Sunday  morning  she 
wrote  a  long  letter  to  her  family  on  an  Indiana  farm 
and  then  put  on  a  hat  from  among  the  samples  in 
the  show  case  along  the  wall  and  went  to  church, 
sitting  by  herself  in  the  same  seat  Sunday  after 
Sunday  and  afterward  remembering  nothing  of  the 
sermon. 

On  Sunday  afternoon  Edith  went  by  street-car 
to  a  park  and  walked  alone  under  the  trees.  If  it 
threatened  rain  she  sat  in  the  larger  of  the  two 
rooms  back  of  the  shop  sewing  on  new  dresses  for 
herself  or  for  a  sister  who  had  married  a  blacksmith 
in  the  Indiana  town  and  who  had  four  children. 

Edith  had  soft  mouse-coloured  hair  and  grey 
eyes  with  small  brown  spots  on  the  iris.  She  was  so 
slender  that  she  wore  pads  about  her  body  under 
her  dress  to  fill  it  out.  In  her  youth  she  had  had 
a  sweetheart — a  fat  round-cheeked  boy  who  lived 
on  the  next  farm.  Once  they  had  gone  together  to 

"3 


H4  MARCHING  MEN 

the  fair  at  the  county  seat  and  coming  home  in  the 
buggy  at  night  he  had  put  his  arm  about  her  and 
kissed  her.  "You  ain't  very  big,"  he  had  said. 

Edith  sent  to  a  mail  order  house  in  Chicago  and 
bought  the  padding  which  she  wore  under  her  dress. 
With  it  came  an  oil  which  she  rubbed  on  herself. 
The  label  on  the  bottle  spoke  of  the  contents  with 
great  respect  as  a  wonderful  developer.  The  heavy 
pads  wore  raw  places  on  her  side  against  which 
her  clothes  rubbed  but  she  bore  the  pain  with  grim 
stoicism,  remembering  what  the  fat  boy  had  said. 

After  Edith  came  to  Chicago  and  opened  a  shop 
of  her  own  she  had  a  letter  from  her  former  ad 
mirer.  "It  pleases  me  to  think  that  the  same  wind 
that  blows  over  me  blows  also  over  you,"  it  said. 
After  that  one  letter  she  did  not  hear  from  him 
again.  He  had  the  phrase  out  of  a  book  he  had  read 
and  had  written  the  letter  to  Edith  that  he  might 
use  it.  After  the  letter  had  gone  he  thought  of  her 
frail  figure  and  repented  of  the  impulse  that  had 
tricked  him  into  writing.  Half  in  alarm  he  began 
courting  and  soon  married  another  girl. 

Sometimes  on  her  rare  visits  home  Edith  had 
seen  her  former  lover  driving  along  the  road.  The 
sister  who  had  married  the  blacksmith  said  that  he 
was  stingy,  that  his  wife  had  nothing  to  wear  but  a 
cheap  calico  dress  and  that  on  Saturday  he  drove 
off  to  town  alone,  leaving  her  to  milk  the  cows  and 
feed  the  pigs  and  horses.  Once  he  encountered 


MARCHING  MEN  115 

Edith  on  the  road  and  tried  to  get  her  into  the 
wagon  to  ride  with  him.  Although  she  had  walked 
along  the  road  ignoring  him  she  took  the  letter 
about  the  wind  that  blew  over  them  both  out  of  a 
drawer  on  spring  evenings  or  after  a  walk  in  the 
park  and  read  it  over.  After  she  had  read  it  she 
sat  in  the  darkness  at  the  front  of  the  store  looking 
through  the  screen  door  at  people  in  the  street  and 
wondered  what  life  would  mean  to  her  if  she  had  a 
man  on  whom  she  could  bestow  her  love.  In  her 
heart  she  believed  that,  unlike  the  wife  of  the  fat 
youth,  she  would  have  borne  children. 

In  Chicago  Edith  Carson  had  made  money.  She 
had  a  genius  for  economy  in  the  management  of  her 
business.  In  six  years  she  had  cleared  a  large  debt 
from  the  shop  and  had  a  comfortable  balance  in  the 
bank.  Girls  who  worked  in  factories  or  in  stores 
came  and  left  most  of  their  meagre  surplus  in  her 
shop  and  other  girls  who  didn't  work  came  in, 
throwing  dollars  about  and  talking  about  "gentle 
men  friends."  Edith  hated  the  bargaining  but  at 
tended  to  it  with  shrewdness  and  with  a  quiet  dis 
arming  little  smile  on  her  face.  What  she  liked  was 
to  sit  quietly  in  the  room  and  trim  hats.  When  the 
business  grew  she  had  a  woman  to  tend  the  shop 
and  a  girl  to  sit  beside  her  and  help  with  the  hats. 
She  had  a  friend,  the  wife  of  a  motorman  on  the 
street-car  line,  who  sometimes  came  to  see  her  in 
the  evening.  The  friend  was  a  plump  little  woman, 


n6  MARCHING  MEN 

dissatisfied  with  her  marriage,  and  she  got  Edith  to 
make  her  several  new  hats  a  year  for  which  she 
paid  nothing. 

Edith  went  to  the  dance  at  which  she  met  Mc 
Gregor  with  the  motor-man's  wife  and  a  girl  who 
lived  upstairs  over  a  bakery  next  door  to  the  shop. 
The  dance  was  held  in  a  hall  over  a  saloon  and  was 
given  for  the  benefit  of  a  political  organisation  in 
which  the  baker  was  a  leader.  The  wife  of  the 
baker  came  in  and  sold  Edith  two  tickets,  one  for 
herself  and  one  for  the  wife  of  the  motorman  who 
happened  to  be  sitting  with  her  at  the  time. 

That  evening  after  the  motorman's  wife  had  gone 
home  Edith  decided  to  go  to  the  dance  and  the 
decision  was  something  like  an  adventure  in  itself. 
The  night  was  hot  and  sultry,  lightning  flashed  in 
the  sky  and  clouds  of  dust  swept  down  the  street. 
Edith  sat  in  the  darkness  behind  the  bolted  screen 
door  and  looked  at  the  people  who  hurried  home 
ward  down  the  street.  A  wave  of  revolt  at  the  nar 
rowness  and  emptiness  of  her  life  ran  through  her. 
Tears  sprang  to  her  eyes.  She  closed  the  shop  door 
and  going  into  the  room  at  the  back  lighted  the  gas 
and  stood  looking  at  herself  in  the  mirror.  "I'll 
go  to  the  dance,"  she  thought.  "Perhaps  I  shall 
get  a  man.  If  he  won't  marry  me  he  can  have  what 
he  wants  of  me  anyway." 

In  the  dance  hall  Edith  sat  demurely  by  the  wall 
near  a  window  and  watched  the  couples  whirl  about 


MARCHING  MEN  117 

on  the  floor.  Through  an  open  door  she  could  see 
couples  sitting  in  another  room  around  tables  and 
drinking  beer.  A  tall  young  man  in  white  trousers 
and  white  slippers  went  about  on  the  dance  floor. 
He  smiled  and  bowed  to  the  women.  .Once  he  start 
ed  across  the  floor  toward  Edith  and  her  heart  beat 
rapidly,  but  just  when  she  thought  he  intended  to 
speak  to  her  and  to  the  motorman's  wife  he  turned 
and  went  to  another  part  of  the  room.  Edith  fol 
lowed  him  with  her  eyes,  admiring  his  white  trousers 
and  his  shining  white  teeth. 

The  wife  of  the  motorman  went  away  with  a 
small  straight  man  with  a  grey  moustache  whom 
Edith  thought  had  unpleasant  eyes  and  two  girls 
came  and  sat  beside  her.  They  were  customers  of 
her  store  and  lived  together  in  a  flat  over  a  grocery 
on  Monroe  Street.  Edith  had  heard  the  girl  who 
sat  in  the  workroom  with  her  speak  slightingly  of 
them.  The  three  sat  together  along  the  wall  and 
talked  of  hats. 

And  then  across  the  floor  of  the  dance  hall  came 
two  men,  a  huge  red-haired  fellow  and  a  little  man 
with  a  black  beard.  The  two  women  hailed  them 
and  the  five  sat  together  making  a  party  by  the 
wall,  the  little  man  keeping  up  a  running  stream  of 
comments  about  the  people  on  the  floor  with  Edith's 
two  companions.  A  dance  struck  up  and  taking 
one  of  the  women  the  black-bearded  man  danced 
away.  Edith  and  the  other  woman  again  talked  of 


n8  MARCHING  MEN 

hats.  The  huge  fellow  beside  her  said  nothing  but 
followed  the  women  about  the  dance  hall  with  his 
eyes.  Edith  thought  she  had  never  seen  so  homely 
a  fellow. 

At  the  end  of  the  dance  the  black-bearded  man 
went  through  the  door  into  the  room  filled  with 
little  tables  and  made  a  sign  to  the  red-haired  man 
to.  follow.  A  boyish  looking  fellow  appeared  and 
went  away  with  the  other  woman  and  Edith  sat 
alone  on  the  bench  by  the  wall  beside  McGregor. 

"This  place  doesn't  interest  me,"  said  McGregor 
quickly.  "I  don't  like  to  sit  watching  people  hop 
about  on  their  toes.  If  you  want  to  come  with  me 
we'll  get  out  of  here  and  go  to  some  place  where  we 
can  talk  and  get  acquainted." 

The  little  milliner  walked  across  the  floor  on  the 
arm  of  McGregor,  her  heart  jumping  with  excite 
ment.  "I've  got  a  man,"  she  thought,  exulting. 
That  the  man  had  deliberately  chosen  her  she  knew. 
She  had  heard  the  introductions  and  the  bantering 
talk  of  the  black-bearded  man  and  had  noted  the 
indifference  of  the  big  man  to  the  other  women. 

Edith  looked  at  her  companion's  huge  frame  and 
forgot  his  homeliness.  Into  her  mind  came  a  pic 
ture  of  the  fat  boy,  grown  into  a  man,  driving  down 
the  road  in  the  wagon  and  leeringly  asking  her  to 
ride  with  him.  A  flood  of  anger  at  the  memory  of 
the  look  of  greedy  assurance  in  his  eyes  came  over 


MARCHING  MEN  119 

her.  "This  one  could  knock  him  over  a  six-rail 
fence,"  she  thought. 

''Where  are  we  going  now?"  she  asked. 

McGregor  looked  down  at  her.  "To  some  place 
where  we  can  talk,"  he  said.  "I  was  sick  of  this 
place.  You  ought  to  know  where  we're  going.  I'm 
going  with  you.  You  aren't  going  with  me." 

McGregor  wished  he  were  in  Coal  Creek.  He 
felt  he  would  like  to  take  this  woman  over  the  hill 
and  sit  on  the  log  to  talk  of  his  father. 

As  they  walked  along  Monroe  Street  Edith 
thought  of  the  resolution  she  had  made  as  she  stood 
before  the  mirror  in  her  room  at  the  back  of  the 
shop  on  the  evening  when  she  had  decided  to  come 
to  the  dance.  She  wondered  if  the  great  adventure 
was  about  to  come  to  her  and  her  hand  trembled  on 
McGregor's  arm.  A  hot  wave  of  hope  and  fear 
shot  through  her. 

At  the  door  of  the  millinery  shop  she  fumbled 
with  uncertain  hands  as  she  unlocked  the  door.  A 
delicious  feeling  shook  her.  She  felt  like  a  bride, 
glad  and  yet  ashamed  and  afraid. 

In  the  room  at  the  back  of  the  shop  McGregor 
lighted  the  gas  and  pulling  off  his  overcoat  threw  it 
on  the  couch  at  the  side  of  the  room.  He  was  not 
in  the  least  excited  and  with  a  steady  hand  lighted 
the  fire  in  the  little  stove  and  then  looking  up  he 
asked  Edith  if  he  might  smoke.  He  had  the  air  of 
a  man  come  home  to  his  own  house  and  the  woman 


120  MARCHING  MEN 

sat  on  the  edge  of  her  chair  to  unpin  her  hat  and 
waited  hopefully  to  see  what  course  the  night's 
adventure  would  take. 

For  two  hours  McGregor  sat  in  the  rocking  chair 
in  Edith  Carson's  room  and  talked  of  Coal  Creek 
and  of  his  life  in  Chicago.  He  talked  freely,  letting 
himself  go  as  a  man  might  in  talking  to  one  of  his 
own  people  after  a  long  absence.  His  attitude  and 
the  quiet  ring  in  his  voice  confused  and  puzzled 
Edith.  She  had  expected  something  quite  different. 

Going  to  the  little  room  at  the  side  she  brought 
forth  a  teakettle  and  prepared  to  make  tea.  The 
big  man  still  sat  in  her  chair  smoking  and  talking. 
A  delightful  feeling  of  safety  and  coziness  crept 
over  her.  She  thought  her  room  beautiful  but 
mingled  with  her  satisfaction  was  a  faint  grey  streak 
of  fear.  "Of  course  he  won't  come  back  again," 
she  thought. 


CHAPTER   VII 

IN  the  year  following  the  beginning  of  his  ac 
quaintanceship  with  Edith  Carson  McGregor  con 
tinued  to  work  hard  and  steadily  in  the  warehouse 
and  with  his  books  at  night.  He  was  promoted  to 
be  foreman,  replacing  the  German,  and  he  thought 
he  had  made  progress  with  his  studies.  When  he 
did  not  go  to  the  night  school  he  went  to  Edith  Car 
son's  place  and  sat  reading  a  book  and  smoking  his 
pipe  by  a  little  table  in  the  back  room. 

About  the  room  and  in  and  out  of  her  shop  moved 
Edith,  going  softly  and  quietly.  A  light  began  to 
come  into  her  eyes  and  colour  into  her  cheeks.  She 
did  not  talk  but  new  and  daring  thoughts  visited 
her  mind  and  a  thrill  of  reawakened  life  ran  through 
her  body.  With  gentle  insistence  she  did  not  let 
her  dreams  express  themselves  in  words  and  almost 
hoped  that  she  might  be  able  to  go  on  forever  thus, 
having  this  strong  man  come  into  her  presence  and 
sit  absorbed  in  his  own  affairs  within  the  walls  of 
her  house.  Sometimes  she  wanted  him  to  talk  and 
wished  that  she  had  the  power  to  lead  him  into  the 
telling  of  little  facts  of  his  life.  She  wanted  to  be 
told  of  his  mother  and  father,  of  his  boyhood  in  the 

121 


122  MARCHING  MEN 

Pennsylvania  town,  of  his  dreams  and  his  desires, 
but  for  the  most  part  she  was  content  to  wait  and 
only  hoped  that  nothing  would  happen  to  bring  an 
end  to  her  waiting. 

McGregor  began  to  read  books  of  history  and 
became  absorbed  in  the  figures  of  certain  men,  all 
soldiers  and  leaders  of  soldiers  who  stalked  across 
the  pages  wherein  was  written  the  story  of  man's 
life.  The  figures  of  Sherman,  Grant,  Lee,  Jackson, 
Alexander,  Caesar,  Napoleon,  and  Wellington 
seemed  to  him  to  stand  starkly  up  among  the  other 
figures  in  the  books  and  going  to  the  Public  Library 
at  the  noon  hour  he  got  books  concerning  these  men 
and  for  a  time  lost  interest  in  the  study  of  law  and 
devoted  himself  to  contemplation  of  the  breakers 
of  laws. 

There  was  something  beautiful  about  McGregor 
in  those  days.  He  was  as  virginal  and  pure  as  a 
chunk  of  the  hard  black  coal  out  of  the  hills  of  his 
own  state  and  like  the  coal  ready  to  burn  himself  out 
into  power.  Nature  had  been  kind  to  him.  He  had 
the  gift  of  silence  and  of  isolation.  All  about  him 
were  other  men,  perhaps  as  strong  physically  as 
himself  and  with  better  trained  minds  who  were 
being  destroyed  and  he  was  not  being  destroyed. 
For  the  others  life  let  itself  run  out  in  the  endless 
doing  of  little  tasks,  the  thinking  of  little  thoughts 
and  the  saying  of  groups  of  words  over  and  over 
endlessly  like  parrots  that  sit  in  cages  and  earn 

: 


MARCHING  MEN  123 

their  bread  by  screaming  two  or  three  sentences  to 
passers  by. 

It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  speculate  on  how  man  has 
been  defeated  by  his  ability  to  say  words.  The 
brown  bear  in  the  forest  has  no  such  power  and  the 
lack  of  it  has  enabled  him  to  retain  a  kind  of  nobility 
of  bearing  sadly  lacking  in  us.  On  and  on  through 
life  we  go,  socialists,  dreamers,  makers  of  laws, 
sellers  of  goods  and  believers  in  suffrage  for  women 
and  we  continuously  say  words,  worn-out  words, 
crooked  words,  words  without  power  or  pregnancy 
in  them. 

The  matter  is  one  to  be  thought  of  seriously  by 
youths  and  maidens  inclined  to  garrulousness. 
Those  who  have  the  habit  of  it  will  never  change. 
The  gods  who  lean  over  the  rim  of  the  world  to 
laugh  at  us  have  marked  them  for  their  barrenness. 

And  yet  the  word  must  run  on.  McGregor,  the 
silent,  wanted  his  word.  He  wanted  his  true  note 
as  an  individual  to  ring  out  above  the  hubbub  of 
voices  and  then  he  wanted  to  use  the  strength  and 
the  virility  within  himself  to  carry  his  word  far. 
What  he  did  not  want  was  that  his  mouth  become 
foul  and  his  brain  become  numb  with  the  saying 
of  the  words  and  the  thinking  of  the  thoughts  of 
other  men  and  that  he  in  his  turn  become  a  mere 
toiling  food-consuming  chattering  puppet  to  the 
gods. 

For  a  long  time  the  miner's  son  wondered  what 


124  MARCHING  MEN 

power  lay  in  the  men  whose  figures  stood  up  so 
boldly  in  the  pages  of  the  books  he  read.  He  tried 
to  think  the  matter  out  as  he  sat  in  Edith's  room 
or  walked  by  himself  through  the  streets.  In  the 
warehouse  he  looked  with  new  curiosity  at  the  men 
who  worked  in  the  great  rooms  piling  and  unpiling 
apple  barrels  and  the  boxes  of  eggs  and  fruit. 
When  he  came  into  one  of  the  rooms  the  men  who 
had  been  standing  in  groups  idly  talking  of  their 
own  affairs  began  to  run  busily  about.  They  no 
longer  chattered  but  as  long  as  he  remained  worked 
desperately,  furtively  watching  as  he  stood  staring 
at  them. 

McGregor  wondered.  He  tried  to  fathom  the 
mystery  of  the  power  that  made  them  willing  to 
work  until  their  bodies  were  bent  and  stooped, 
that  made  them  unashamed  to  be  afraid  and  that 
left  them  in  the  end  mere  slaves  to  words  and  for 
mulas. 

The  perplexed  young  man  who  watched  the  men 
in  the  warehouse  began  to  think  that  the  passion  for 
reproduction  might  have  something  to  do  with  the 
matter.  Perhaps  his  constant  association  with 
Edith  awakened  the  thought.  His  own  loins  were 
heavy  with  the  seeds  of  children  and  only  his  absorp 
tion  in  the  thought  of  finding  himself  kept  him 
from  devoting  himself  to  the  feeding  of  his  lusts. 
One  day  he  had  a  talk  concerning  the  matter  with  a 


MARCHING  MEN  125 

man  at  the  warehouse.  The  talk  came  about  in 
this  way. 

In  the  warehouse  the  men  came  in  at  the  door 
in  the  morning,  drifting  in  like  flies  that  wander 
in  at  the  open  windows  on  a  summer  day.  With 
downcast  eyes  they  shuffled  across  the  long  floor, 
white  with  lime.  Morning  after  morning  they  came 
in  at  the  door  and  went  silently  to  their  places 
looking  at  the  floor  and  scowling.  A  slender 
bright-eyed  young  man  who  acted  as  shipping 
clerk  during  the  day  sat  in  a  little  coop  and  to  him 
the  men  as  they  passed  called  out  their  numbers. 
From  time  to  time  the  shipping  clerk  who  was  an 
Irishman  tried  to  joke  with  one  of  them,  tapping 
sharply  upon  his  desk  with  a  pencil  as  though  to 
compel  attention.  "They  are  no  good/'  he  said  to 
himself,  when  in  response  to  his  sallies  they  only 
smiled  vaguely.  "Although  they  get  but  a  dollar 
and  a  half  a  day  they  are  overpaid!"  Like  Mc 
Gregor  he  had  nothing  but  contempt  for  the  men 
whose  numbers  he  put  in  the  book.  Their  stupidity 
he  took  as  a  compliment  to  himself.  "We  are  the 
kind  who  get  things  done,"  he  thought  as  he  put  the 
pencil  back  of  his  ear  and  closed  the  book.  In 
his  mind  the  futile  pride  of  the  middle  class  man 
flamed  up.  In  his  contempt  for  the  workers  he 
forgot  also  to  have  contempt  for  himself. 

One  morning  McGregor  and  the  shipping  clerk 
stood  upon  a  board  platform  facing  the  street  and 


126  MARCHING  MEN 

the  shipping  clerk  talked  of  parentage.  "The  wives 
of  the  workers  here  have  children  as  cattle  have 
calves,"  said  the  Irishman.  Moved  by  some  hidden 
sentiment  within  himself  he  added  heartily.  "Oh 
well,  what's  a  man  for?  It's  nice  to  see  kids  around 
the  house.  I've  got  four  kids  myself.  You  should 
see  them  play  about  in  the  garden  at  my  place  in 
Oak  Park  when  I  come  home  in  the  evening." 

McGregor  thought  of  Edith  Carson  and  a  faint 
hunger  began  to  grow  within  him.  A  desire  that 
was  later  to  come  near  to  upsetting  the  purpose  of 
his  life  began  to  make  itself  felt.  With  a  growl  he 
fought  against  the  desire  and  confused  the  Irish 
man  by  making  an  attack  upon  him.  "Well  how 
are  you  any  better?"  he  asked  bluntly.  "Do  you 
think  your  children  any  more  important  than  theirs  ? 
You  may  have  a  better  mind  but  their  bodies  are 
better  and  your  mind  hasn't  made  you  a  very  strik 
ing  figure  as  far  as  I  can  see." 

Turning  away  from  the  Irishman  who  had  begun 
to  sputter  with  wrath  McGregor  went  up  an  ele 
vator  to  a  distant  part  of  the  building  to  think 
of  the  Irishman's  words.  From  time  to  time  he 
spoke  sharply  to  a  workman  who  loitered  in  one 
of  the  passages  between  the  piles  of  boxes  and 
barrels.  Under  his  hand  the  work  in  the  warehouse 
had  begun  to  take  on  order  and  the  little  grey-haired 
superintendent  who  had  employed  him  rubbed  his 
hands  with  delight. 


MARCHING  MEN  127 

In  a  corner  by  a  window  stood  McGregor  wonder 
ing  why  he  also  did  not  want  to  devote  his  life  to 
being  the  father  of  children.  In  the  dim  light  across 
the  face  of  the  window  a  fat  old  spider  crawled 
slowly.  In  the  hideous  body  of  the  insect  there  was 
something  that  suggested  to  the  mind  of  the  strug 
gling  thinker  the  sloth  of  the  world.  Vaguely  his 
mind  groped  about  trying  to  get  hold  of  words  and 
ideas  to  express  what  was  in  his  brain.  "Ugly 
crawling  things  that  look  at  the  floor,"  he  muttered. 
"If  they  have  children  it  is  without  order  or  orderly 
purpose.  It  is  an  accident  like  the  accident  of  the 
fly  that  falls  into  the  net  built  by  the  insect  here. 
The  coming  of  the  children  is  like  the  coming  of  the 
flies,  it  feeds  a  kind  of  cowardice  in  men.  In  the 
children  men  hope  vainly  to  see  done  what  they  have 
not  the  courage  to  try  to  do." 

With  an  oath  McGregor  smashed  with  his  heavy 
leather  glove  the  fat  thing  wandering  aimlessly 
across  the  light.  "I  must  not  be  confused  by  little 
things.  There  is  still  going  on  the  attempt  to  force 
me  into  the  hole  in  the  ground.  There  is  a  hole 
here  in  which  men  live  and  work  just  as  there  is  in 
the  mining  town  from  which  I  came." 

Hurrying  out  of  his  room  that  evening  McGregor 
went  to  see  Edith.  He  wanted  to  look  at  her  and 
to  think.  In  the  little  room  at  the  back  he  sat  for  an 
hour  trying  to  read  a  book  and  then  for  the  first 


128  MARCHING  MEN 

time  shared  his  thoughts  with  her.  "I  am  trying 
to  discover  why  men  are  of  so  little  importance," 
he  said  suddenly.  "Are  they  mere  tools  for  women  ? 
Tell  me  that.  Tell  me  what  women  think  and  what 
they  want?" 

Without  waiting  for  an  answer  he  turned  again 
to  the  reading  of  the  book.  "Oh  well,"  he  added, 
"it  doesn't  need  to  bother  me.  I  won't  let  any 
women  lead  me  into  being  a  reproductive  tool  for 
her." 

in  Edith  was  alarmed.  She  took  McGregor's  out 
burst  as  a  declaration  of  war  against  herself  and 
her  influence  and  her  hands  began  to  tremble. 
Then  a  new  thought  came  to  her.  "He  needs  money 
to  get  on  in  the  world,"  she  told  herself  and  a 
little  thrill  of  joy  ran  through  her  as  she  thought 
of  her  own  carefully  guarded  hoard.  She  wondered 
how  she  could  offer  it  to  him  so  that  there  would 
be  no  danger  of  a  refusal. 

"You're  all  right,"  said  McGregor,  preparing  to 
depart.  "You  do  not  interfere  with  a  man's 
thoughts." 

Edith  blushed  and  like  the  workmen  in  the  ware 
house  looked  at  the  floor.  Something  in  his  words 
startled  her  and  when  he  was  gone  she  went  to  her 
desk  and  taking  out  her  bankbook  turned  its  pages 
with  new  pleasure.  Without  hesitation  she  who 
indulged  herself  in  nothing  would  have  given  all  to 
McGregor. 


MARCHING  MEN  129 

And  out  into  the  street  went  the  man,  thinking 
of  his  own  affairs.  He  dismissed  from  his  mind 
the  thoughts  of  women  and  children  and  began  again 
to  think  of  the  stirring  figures  of  history  that  had 
made  so  strong  an  appeal  to  him.  As  he  passed 
over  one  of  the  bridges  he  stopped  and  stood  lean 
ing  over  the  rail  to  look  at  the  black  water  below. 
"Why  has  thought  never  succeeded  in  replacing  ac 
tion?"  he  asked  himself.  "Why  are  the  men  who 
write  books  in  some  way  less  full  of  meaning  than 
the  men  who  do  things  ?" 

McGregor  was  staggered  by  the  thought  that  had 
come  to  him  and  wondered  if  he  had  started  on  a 
wrong  trail  by  coming  to  the  city  and  trying  to 
educate  himself.  For  an  hour  he  stood  in  the  dark 
ness  and  tried  to  think  things  out.  It  began  to  rain 
but  he  did  not  mind.  Into  his  brain  began  to  creep 
a  dream  of  a  vast  order  coming  out  of  disorder. 
He  was  like  one  standing  in  the  presence  of  some 
gigantic  machine  with  many  intricate  parts  that  had 
begun  to  run  crazily,  each  part  without  regard  to  the 
purpose  of  the  whole.  "There  is  danger  in  thinking 
too,"  he  muttered  vaguely.  "Everywhere  there  is 
danger,  in  labour,  in  love  and  in  thinking.  What 
shall  I  do  with  myself?" 

McGregor  turned  about  and  threw  up  his  hands. 
A  new  thought  swept  like  a  broad  path  of  light 
across  the  darkness  of  his  mind.  He  began  to  see 
that  the  soldiers  who  had  led  thousands  of  men  into 


130  MARCHING  MEN 

battle  had  appealed  to  him  because  in  the  working 
out  of  their  purposes  they  had  used  human  lives 
with  the  recklessness  of  gods.  They  had  found  the 
courage  to  do  that  and  their  courage  was  magnifi 
cent.  Away  down  deep  in  the  hearts  of  men  lay 
sleeping  a  love  of  order  and  they  had  taken  hold  of 
that  love.  If  they  had  used  it  badly  did  that  mat 
ter?  Had  they  not  pointed  the  way? 

Back  into  McGregor's  mind  came  a  night  scene 
in  his  home  town.  Vividly  he  saw  in  fancy  the  poor 
unkempt  little  street  facing  the  railroad  tracks  and 
the  groups  of  striking  miners  huddled  in  the  light 
before  the  door  of  a  saloon  while  in  the  road  a  body 
of  soldiers  marched  past,  their  uniforms  looking 
grey  and  their  faces  grim  in  the  uncertain  light. 
"They  marched,"  whispered  McGregor.  "That's 
what  made  them  seem  so  powerful.  They  were  just 
ordinary  men  but  they  went  swinging  along,  all  as 
one  man.  Something  in  that  fact  ennobled  them. 
That's  what  Grant  knew  and  what  Caesar  knew. 
That's  what  made  Grant  and  Caesar  seem  so  big. 
They  knew  and  they  were  not  afraid  to  use  their 
knowledge.  Perhaps  they  did  not  bother  to  think 
how  it  would  all  come  out.  They  hoped  for  an 
other  kind  of  man  to  do  the  thinking.  Perhaps  they 
did  not  think  of  anything  at  all  but  just  went  ahead 
and  tried  to  do  each  his  own  part. 

"I  will  do  my  part  here,"  shouted  McGregor.  "I 
will  find  the  way."  His  body  shook  and  his  voice 


MARCHING  MEN  131 

roared  along  the  footpath  of  the  bridge.  Men 
stopped  to  look  back  at  the  big  shouting  figure. 
Two  women  walking  past  screamed  and  ran  into  the 
roadway.  McGregor  walked  rapidly  away  toward 
his  own  room  and  his  books.  He  did  not  know  how 
he  would  be  able  to  use  the  new  impulse  that  had 
come  to  him  but  as  he  swung  along  through  dark 
streets  and  past  rows  of  dark  buildings  he  thought 
again  of  the  great  machine  running  crazily  and 
without  purpose  and  was  glad  he  was  not  a  part  of 
it.  "I  will  keep  myself  to  myself  and  be  ready  for 
what  happens,"  he  said,  burning  with  new  courage. 


BOOK  III 


CHAPTER   I 

WHEN  McGregor  had  secured  the  place  in  the 
apple-warehouse  and  went  home  to  the  house  in 
Wycliff  Place  with  his  first  week's  pay,  twelve  dol 
lars,  in  his  pocket  he  thought  of  his  mother,  Nance 
McGregor,  working  in  the  mine  offices  in  the  Penn 
sylvania  town  and  folding  a  five  dollar  bill  sent  it 
to  her  in  a  letter.  "I  will  begin  to  take  care  of  her 
now,"  he  thought  and  with  the  rough  sense  of 
equity  in  such  matters,  common  to  labouring  people, 
had  no  intention  of  giving  himself  airs.  "She  has  fed 
me  and  now  I  will  begin  to  feed  her," he  told  himself. 

The  five  dollars  came  back.  "Keep  it.  I  don't 
want  your  money,"  the  mother  wrote.  "If  you  have 
money  left  after  your  expenses  are  paid  begin  to  fix 
yourself  up.  Better  get  a  new  pair  of  shoes  or  a 
hat.  Don't  try  to  take  care  of  me.  I  won't  have 
it.  I  want  you  to  look  out  for  yourself.  Dress  well 
and  hold  up  your  head,  that's  all  I  ask.  In  the  city 
clothes  mean  a  good  deal.  In  the  long  run  it  will 
mean  more  to  me  to  see  you  be  a  real  man  than  to 
be  a  good  son." 

133 


134  MARCHING  MEN 

Sitting  in  her  rooms  over  the  vacant  bake-shop  in 
Coal  Creek  Nance  began  to  get  new  satisfaction  out 
of  the  contemplation  of  herself  as  a  woman  with  a 
son  in  the  city.  In  the  evening  she  thought  of 
him  moving  along  the  crowded  thoroughfares 
among  men  and  women  and  her  bent  little  old 
figure  straightened  with  pride.  When  a  letter  came 
telling  of  his  work  in  the  night  school  her  heart 
jumped  and  she  wrote  a  long  letter  filled  with  talk 
of  Garfield  and  Grant  and  of  Lincoln  lying  by  the 
burning  pine  knot  reading  his  books.  It  seemed  to 
her  unbelievably  romantic  that  her  son  should  some 
day  be  a  lawyer  and  stand  up  in  a  crowded  court 
room  speaking  thoughts  out  of  his  brain  to  other 
men.  She  thought  that  if  this  great  red-haired  boy, 
who  at  home  had  been  so  unmanageable  and  so 
quick  with  his  fists,  was  to  end  by  being  a  man  of 
books  and  of  brains  then  she  and  her  man,  Cracked 
McGregor,  had  not  lived  in  vain.  A  sweet  new 
sense  of  peace  came  to  her.  She  forgot  her  own 
years  of  toil  and  gradually  her  mind  went  back  to 
the  silent  boy  sitting  on  the  steps  with  her  before 
her  house  in  the  year  after  her  husband's  death 
while  she  talked  to  him  of  the  world,  and  thus  she 
thought  of  him,  a  quiet  eager  boy,  going  about 
bravely  there  in  the  distant  city. 

Death  caught  Nance  McGregor  off  her  guard. 
After  one  of  her  long  days  of  toil  in  the  mine  office 
she  awoke  to  find  him  sitting  grim  and  expectant 


MARCHING  MEN  135 

beside  her  bed.  For  years  she  in  common  with 
most  of  the  women  of  the  coal  town  had  been  af 
flicted  with  what  is  called  "trouble  with  the  heart." 
Now  and  then  she  had  "bad  spells."  On  this  spring 
evening  she  got  into  bed  and  sitting  propped  among 
the  pillows  fought  out  her  fight  alone  like  a  worn- 
out  animal  that  has  crept  into  a  hole  in  the  woods. 

In  the  middle  of  the  night  the  conviction  came  to 
her  that  she  would  die.  Death  seemed  moving 
about  in  the  room  and  waiting  for  her.  In  the  street 
two  drunken  men  stood  talking,  their  voices  con 
cerned  with  their  own  human  affairs  coming  in 
through  the  window  and  making  life  seem  very 
near  and  dear  to  the  dying  woman.  "I've  been 
everywhere,"  said  one  of  the  men.  "I've  been  in 
towns  and  cities  I  don't  even  remember  the  names 
of.  You  ask  Alex  Fielder  who  keeps  a  saloon  in 
Denver.  Ask  him  if  Gus  Lament  has  been  there." 

The  other  man  laughed.  "You've  been  in  Jake's 
drinking  too  much  beer,"  he  jeered. 

Nance  heard  the  two  men  stumble  off  down  the 
street,  the  traveller  protesting  against  the  unbelief 
of  his  friend.  It  seemed  to  her  that  life  with  all  of 
its  colour  sound  and  meaning  was  running  away 
from  her  presence.  The  exhaust  of  the  engine  over 
at  the  mine  rang  in  her  ears.  She  thought  of  the 
mine  as  a  great  monster  lying  asleep  below  the 
ground,  its  huge  nose  stuck  into  the  air,  its  mouth 
open  to  eat  men.  In  the  darkness  of  the  room  her 


136  MARCHING  MEN 

coat,  flung  over  the  back  of  a  chair,  took  the  shape 
and  outline  of  a  face,  huge  and  grotesque,  staring 
silently  past  her  into  the  sky. 

Nance  McGregor  gasped  and  struggled  for 
breath.  She  clutched  the  bedclothes  with  her  hands 
and  fought  grimly  and  silently.  She  did  not  think 
of  the  place  to  which  she  might  go  after  death.  She 
was  trying  hard  not  to  go  there.  It  had  been  her 
habit  of  life  to  fight  not  to  dream  dreams. 

Nance  thought  of  her  father,  drunk  and  throwing 
his  money  about  in  the  old  days  before  her  mar 
riage,  of  the  walks  she  as  a  young  girl  had  taken 
with  her  lover  on  Sunday  afternoons  and  of  the 
times  when  they  had  gone  together  to  sit  on  the 
hillside  overlooking  the  farming  country.  As  in  a 
vision  the  dying  woman  saw  the  broad  fertile  land 
spread  out  before  her  and  blamed  herself  that  she 
had  not  done  more  toward  helping  her  man  in  the 
fulfilment  of  the  plans  she  and  he  had  made  to  go 
there  and  live.  Then  she  thought  of  the  night  when 
her  boy  came  and  of  how,  when  they  went  to  bring 
her  man  from  the  mine,  they  found  him  apparently 
dead  under  the  fallen  timbers  so  that  she  thought  life 
and  death  had  visited  her  hand  in  hand  in  one  night. 

Nance  sat  stiffly  up  in  bed.  She  thought  she 
heard  the  sound  of  heavy  feet  on  the  stairs.  "That 
will  be  Beaut  coming  up  from  the  shop,"  she  mut 
tered  and  fell  back  upon  the  pillow  dead. 


CHAPTER    II 

BEAUT  MCGREGOR  went  home  to  Pennsylvania 
to  bury  his  mother  and  on  a  summer  afternoon 
walked  again  on  the  streets  of  his  native  town. 
From  the  station  he  went  at  once  to  the  empty  bake- 
shop,  above  which  he  had  lived  with  his  mother 
but  he  did  not  stay  there.  For  a  moment  he  stood 
bag  in  hand  listening  to  the  voices  of  the  miners' 
wives  in  the  room  above  and  then  put  the  bag  be 
hind  an  empty  box  and  hurried  away.  The  voices 
of  women  broke  the  stillness  of  the  room  in  which 
he  stood.  Their  thin  sharpness  hurt  something 
within  him  and  he  could  not  bear  the  thought  of 
the  equally  thin  sharp  silence  he  knew  would  fall 
upon  the  women  who  were  attending  his  mother's 
body  in  the  room  above  when  he  came  into  the 
presence  of  the  dead. 

Along  Main  Street  he  went  to  a  hardware  store 
and  from  there  went  to  the  mine  office.  Then  with 
a  pick  and  shovel  on  his  shoulder  he  began  to 
climb  the  hill  up  which  he  had  walked  with  his 
father  when  he  was  a  lad.  On  the  train  home 
ward  bound  an  idea  had  come  to  him.  "I  will 
bury  her  among  the  bushes  on  the  hillside  that 

137 


138  MARCHING  MEN 

looks  down  into  the  fruitful  valley,"  he  told  him 
self.  The  details  of  a  religious  discussion  between 
two  labourers  that  had  gone  on  one  day  during  the 
noon  hour  at  the  warehouse  had  come  into  his 
mind  and  as  the  train  ran  eastward  he  for  the  first 
time  found  himself  speculating  on  the  possibility 
of  a  life  after  death.  Then  he  brushed  the  thoughts 
aside.  "Anyway  if  Cracked  McGregor  does  come 
back  it  is  there  you  will  find  him,  sitting  on  the  log 
on  the  hillside,"  he  thought. 

With  the  tools  on  his  shoulder  McGregor  climbed 
the  long  hillside  road,  now  deep  with  black  dust. 
He  was  going  to  dig  the  grave  for  the  burial  of 
Nance  McGregor.  He  did  not  glare  at  the  miners 
who  passed  swinging  their  dinner-pails  as  they  had 
done  in  the  old  days  but  looked  at  the  ground  and 
thought  of  the  dead  woman  and  a  little  wondered 
what  place  a  woman  would  yet  come  to  occupy  in 
his  own  life.  On  the  hillside  the  wind  blew  sharply 
and  the  great  boy  just  emerging  into  manhood 
worked  vigorously  making  the  dirt  fly.  When  the 
hole  had  grown  deep  he  stopped  and  looked  to 
where  in  the  valley  below  a  man  who  was  hoeing 
corn  shouted  to  a  woman  who  stood  on  the  porch 
of  a  farm  house.  Two  cows  that  stood  by  a  fence 
in  a  field  lifted  up  their  heads  and  bawled  lustily. 
"It  is  the  place  for  the  dead  to  lie,"  whispered  Mc 
Gregor.  "When  my  own  time  comes  I  shall  be 
brought  up  here."  An  idea  came  to  him.  "I  will 


MARCHING  MEN  139 

have  father's  body  moved,"  he  told  himself. 
"When  I  have  made  some  money  I  will  have  that 
done.  Here  we  shall  all  lie  in  the  end,  all  of  us 
McGregors." 

The  thought  that  had  come  to  McGregor  pleased 
him  and  he  was  pleased  also  with  himself  for  think 
ing  the  thought.  The  male  in  him  made  him  throw 
back  his/ shoulders.  "We  are  two  of  a  feather, 
father  and  me,"  he  muttered,  "two  of  a  feather  and 
mother  has  not  understood  either  of  us.  Perhaps 
no  woman  was  ever  intended  to  understand  us." 

Jumping  out  of  the  hole  he  strode  over  the  crest 
of  the  hill  and  began  the  descent  toward  the  town. 
It  was  late  afternoon  and  the  sun  had  gone  down 
behind  clouds.  "I  wonder  if  I  understand  myself, 
if  any  one  understands,"  he  thought  as  he  went 
swiftly  along  with  the  tools  clanking  on  his 
shoulder. 

McGregor  did  not  want  to  go  back  to  the  town 
and  to  the  dead  woman  in  the  little  room.  He 
thought  of  the  miners'  wives,  attendants  to  the  dead, 
who  would  sit  with  crossed  hands  looking  at  him 
and  turned  out  of  the  road  to  sit  on  the  fallen  log 
where  once  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  he  had  sat  with 
the  black-haired  boy  who  worked  in  the  poolroom 
and  where  the  daughter  of  the  undertaker  had  come 
to  sit  beside  him. 

And  then  up  the  long  hill  came  the  woman  her 
self.  As  she  drew  near  he  recognised  her  tall  figure 


140  MARCHING  MEN 

and  for  some  reason  a  lump  came  into  his  throat. 
She  had  seen  him  depart  from  the  town  with  the 
pick  and  shovel  on  his  shoulder  and  after  waiting 
what  she  thought  an  interval  long  enough  to  still 
the  tongues  of  gossip  had  followed.  "I  wanted  to 
talk  with  you,"  she  said,  climbing  over  logs  and 
coming  to  sit  beside  him. 

For  a  long  time  the  man  and  woman  sat  in  silence 
and  stared  at  the  town  in  the  valley  below.  Mc 
Gregor  thought  she  had  grown  more  pale  than  ever 
and  looked  at  her  sharply.  His  mind,  more  accus 
tomed  to  look  critically  at  women  than  had  been  the 
mind  of  the  boy  who  had  once  sat  talking  to  her  on 
the  same  log,  began  to  inventory  her  body.  "She  is 
already  becoming  stooped,"  he  thought.  "I  would 
not  want  to  make  love  to  her  now." 

Along  the  log  toward  him  moved  the  under 
taker's  daughter  and  with  a  swift  impulse  toward 
boldness  slipped  a  thin  hand  into  his.  She  began 
to  talk  of  the  dead  woman  lying  in  the  upstairs 
room  in  the  town.  "We  have  been  friends  since 
you  went  away,"  she  explained.  "She  liked  to  talk 
of  you  and  I  liked  that  too." 

Made  bold  by  her  own  boldness  the  woman  hur 
ried  on.  "I  do  not  want  you  to  misunderstand  me," 
she  said.  "I  know  I  can't  get  you.  I'm  not  thinking 
of  that." 

She  began  to  talk  of  her  own  affairs  and  of  the 
dreariness  of  life  with  her  father  but  McGregor's 


MARCHING  MEN  141 

mind  could  not  centre  itself  on  her  talk.  When 
they  started  down  the  hill  he  had  the  impulse  to  take 
her  in  his  arms  and  carry  her  as  Cracked  Mc 
Gregor  had  once  carried  him  but  was  so  embar 
rassed  that  he  did  not  offer  to  help  her.  He  thought 
that  for  the  first  time  some  one  from  his  native 
town  had  come  close  to  him  and  he  watched  her 
stooped  figure  with  an  odd  new  feeling  of  tender 
ness.  "I  won't  be  alive  long,  maybe  not  a  year. 
I've  got  the  consumption,"  she  whispered  softly  as 
he  left  her  at  the  entrance  to  the  hallway  leading 
up  to  her  home,  and  McGregor  was  so  stirred  by 
her  words  that  he  turned  back  and  spent  another 
hour  wandering  alone  on  the  hillside  before  he  went 
to  see  the  body  of  his  mother. 

In  the  room  above  the  bakery  McGregor  sat  at 
an  open  window  and  looked  down  into  the  dimly 
lighted  street.  In  a  corner  of  the  room  lay  his  mother 
in  a  coffin  and  two  miners'  wives  sat  in  the  darkness 
behind  him.  All  were  silent  and  embarrassed. 

McGregor  leaned  out  of  the  window  and  watched 
a  group  of  miners  who  gathered  at  a  corner.  He 
thought  of  the  undertaker's  daughter,  now  nearing 
death,  and  wondered  why  she  had  suddenly  come  so 
close  to  him.  "It  is  not  because  she  is  a  woman,  I 
know  that,"  he  told  himself  and  tried  to  dismiss  the 
matter  from  his  mind  by  watching  the  people  in  the 
street  below. 


142  MARCHING  MEN 

In  the  mining  town  a  meeting  was  being  held. 
A  box  lay  at  the  edge  of  the  sidewalk  and  upon 
it  climbed  that  same  young  Hartnet  who  had 
once  talked  to  McGregor  and  who  made  his  liv 
ing  by  gathering  birds'  eggs  and  trapping  squir 
rels  in  the  hills.  He  was  frightened  and  talked  rap 
idly.  Presently  he  introduced  a  large  man  with  a 
flat  nose  who,  when  he  had  in  turn  climbed  upon 
the  box,  began  to  tell  stories  and  anecdotes  designed 
to  make  the  miners  laugh. 

McGregor  listened.  He  wished  the  undertaker's 
daughter  were  there  to  sit  in  the  darkened  room 
beside  him.  He  thought  he  would  like  to  tell  her 
of  his  life  in  the  city  and  of  how  disorganised  and 
ineffective  all  modern  life  seemed  to  him.  Sadness 
invaded  his  mind  and  he  thought  of  his  dead  mother 
and  of  how  this  other  woman  would  presently  die. 
"It's  just  as  well.  Perhaps  there  is  no  other  way, 
no  orderly  march  toward  an  orderly  end.  Perhaps 
one  has  to  die  and  return  to  nature  to  achieve  that," 
he  whispered  to  himself. 

In  the  street  below  the  man  upon  the  box,  who 
was  a  travelling  socialist  orator,  began  to  talk  of 
the  coming  social  revolution.  As  he  talked  it 
seemed  to  McGregor  that  his  jaw  had  become  loose 
from  much  wagging  and  that  his  whole  body  was 
loosely  put  together  and  without  force.  The 
speaker  danced  up  and  down  on  the  box  and  his 


MARCHING  MEN  143 

arms  flapped  about  and  these  also  seemed  loose,  not 
a  part  of  the  body. 

"Vote  with  us  and  the  thing  is  done,"  he  shouted. 
"Are  you  going  to  let  a  few  men  run  things  forever  ? 
Here  you  live  like  beasts  paying  tribute  to  your 
masters.  Arouse  yourselves.  Join  us  in  the  strug 
gle.  You  yourselves  can  be  masters  if  you  will  only 
think  so." 

"You  will  have  to  do  something  more  than  think," 
roared  McGregor,  as  he  leaned  far  out  at  the  win 
dow.  Again  as  always  when  he  had  heard  men  say 
ing  words  he  was  blind  with  anger.  Sharply  he 
remembered  the  walks  he  had  sometimes  taken  at 
night  in  the  city  streets  and  the  air  of  disorderly 
ineffectiveness  all  about  him.  And  here  in  the  min 
ing  town  it  was  the  same.  On  every  side  of  him 
appeared  blank  empty  faces  and  loose  badly  knit 
bodies. 

"Mankind  should  be  like  a  great  fist  ready  to 
smash  and  to  strike.  It  should  be  ready  to  knock 
down  what  stands  in  its  way,"  he  cried,  astonishing 
the  crowd  in  the  street  and  frightening  into  some 
thing  like  hysterics  the  two  women  who  sat  with 
him  beside  the  dead  woman  in  the  darkened  room. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE  funeral  of  Nance  McGregor  was  an  event 
in  Coal  Creek.  In  the  minds  of  the  miners  she 
stood  for  something.  Fearing  and  hating  the  hus 
band  and  the  tall  big-fisted  son  they  had  yet  a 
tenderness  for  the  mother  and  wife.  "She  lost  her 
money  handing  us  out  bread,"  they  said  as  they 
pounded  on  the  bar  in  the  saloon.  Word  ran  about 
among  them  and  they  returned  again  and  again  to 
the  subject.  The  fact  that  she  had  lost  her  man 
twice — once  in  the  mine  when  the  timber  fell  and 
clouded  his  brain,  and  then  later  when  his  body  lay 
black  and  distorted  near  the  door  to  the  McCrary 
cut  after  the  dreadful  time  of  the  fire  in  the  mine — 
was  perhaps  forgotten  but  the  fact  that  she  had 
once  kept  a  store  and  that  she  had  lost  her  money 
serving  them  was  not  forgotten. 

On  the  day  of  the  funeral  the  miners  came  up 
out  of  the  mine  and  stood  in  groups  in  the  open 
street  and  in  the  vacant  bake  shop.  The  men  of 
the  night  shift  had  their  faces  washed  and  had  put 
white  paper  collars  about  their  necks.  The  man 
who  owned  the  saloon  locked  the  front  door  and 
putting  the  keys  into  his  pocket  stood  on  the  side- 

144 


MARCHING  MEN  145 

walk  looking  silently  at  the  windows  of  Nance  Mc 
Gregor's  rooms.  Out  along  the  runway  from  the 
mines  came  other  miners — men  of  the  day  shift. 
Setting  their  dinner  pails  on  the  stone  along  the 
front  of  the  saloon  and  crossing  the  railroad  they 
kneeled  and  washed  their  blackened  faces  in  the 
red  stream  that  flowed  at  the  foot  of  the  embank 
ment  The  voice  of  the  preacher,  a  slender  wasp- 
like  young  man  with  black  hair  and  dark  shadows 
under  his  eyes,  floated  out  to  the  listening  men.  A 
train  of  loaded  coke  cars  rumbled  past  along  the 
back  of  the  stores. 

McGregor  sat  at  the  head  of  the  coffin  dressed  in 
a  new  black  suit.  He  stared  at  the  wall  back  of  the 
head  of  the  preacher,  not  hearing,  thinking  his  own 
thoughts. 

Back  of  McGregor  sat  the  undertaker's  pale 
daughter.  She  leaned  forward  until  she  touched 
the  back  of  the  chair  in  front  and  sat  with  her  face 
buried  in  a  white  handkerchief.  Her  weeping  cut 
across  the  voice  of  the  preacher  in  the  closely 
crowded  little  room  filled  with  miners'  wives  and 
in  the  midst  of  his  prayer  for  the  dead  she  was 
taken  with  a  violent  fit  of  coughing  and  had  to  get 
up  and  hurry  out  of  the  room. 

After  the  services  in  the  rooms  above  the  bake 
shop  a  procession  formed  on  Main  Street.  Like 
awkward  boys  the  miners  fell  into  groups  and 
walked  along  behind  the  black  hearse  and  the  car- 


146  MARCHING  MEN 

riage  in  which  sat  the  dead  woman's  son  with  the 
minister.  The  men  kept  looking  at  each  other  and 
smiling  sheepishly.  There  had  been  no  arrange 
ment  to  follow  the  body  to  its  grave  and  when  they 
thought  of  the  son  and  the  attitude  he  had  always 
maintained  toward  them  they  wondered  whether  or 
not  he  warjted  them  to  follow. 

And  McGregor  was  unconscious  of  all  this.  He 
sat  in  the  carriage  beside  the  minister  and  with 
unseeing  eyes  stared  over  the  heads  of  the  horses. 
He  was  thinking  of  his  life  in  the  city  and  of  what 
he  should  do  there  in  the  future,  of  Edith  Carson, 
sitting  in  the  cheap  dance  hall  and  of  the  evenings 
he  had  spent  with  her,  of  the  barber  on  the  park 
bench  talking  of  women  and  of  his  life  with  his 
mother  when  he  was  a  boy  in  the  mining  town. 

As  the  carriage  climbed  slowly  up  the  hill  fol 
lowed  by  the  miners  McGregor  began  to  love  his 
mother.  For  the  first  time  he  realised  that  her  life 
was  full  of  meaning  and  that  in  her  woman's  way 
she  had  been  quite  as  heroic  in  her  years  of  patient 
toil  as  had  been  her  man  Cracked  McGregor  when 
he  ran  to  his  death  in  the  burning  mine.  Mc 
Gregor's  hands  began  to  tremble  and  his  shoulders 
straightened.  He  became  conscious  of  the  men,  the 
dumb  blackened  children  of  toil  dragging  their 
weary  legs  up  the  hill. 

For  what?  McGregor  stood  up  in  the  carriage 
and  turning  about  looked  at  the  men.  Then  he  fell 


MARCHING  MEN  147 

upon  his  knees  on  the  carriage  seat  and  watched 
them  eagerly,  his  soul  crying  out  to  something  he 
thought  must  be  hidden  away  among  the  black  mass 
of  them,  something  that  was  the  keynote  of  their 
lives,  something  for  which  he  had  not  looked  and  in 
which  he  had  not  believed. 

McGregor,  kneeling  in  the  open  carriage  at  the 
top  of  the  hill  and  watching  the  marching  men 
slowly  toiling  upward,  had  of  a  sudden  one  of  those 
strange  awakenings  that  are  the  reward  of  stoutness 
in  stout  souls.  A  strong  wind  lifted  the  smoke 
from  the  coke  ovens  and  blew  it  up  the  face  of  the 
hill  on  the  farther  side  of  the  valley  and  the  wind 
seemed  to  have  lifted  also  some  of  the  haze  that  had 
covered  his  eyes.  At  the  foot  of  the  hill  along  the 
railroad  he  could  see  the  little  stream,  one  of  the 
blood  red  streams  of  the  mine  country,  and  the  dull 
red  houses  of  the  miners.  The  red  of  the  coke 
ovens,  the  red  sun  setting  behind  the  hills  to  the 
west  and  last  of  all  the  red  stream  flowing  like 
a  river  of  blood  down  through  the  valley  made  a 
scene  that  burned  itself  into  the  brain  of  the  miner's 
son.  A  lump  came  into  his  throat  and  for  a  mo 
ment  he  tried  vainly  to  get  back  his  old  satisfying 
hate  of  the  town  and  the  miners  but  it  would  not 
come.  Long  he  looked  down  the  hill  to  where  the 
miners  of  the  night  shift  marched  up  the  hill  after 
the  carriage  and  the  slowly  moving  hearse.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  they  like  himself  were  march- 


148  MARCHING  MEN 

ing  up  out  of  the  smoke  and  the  little  squalid  houses, 
away  from  the  shores  of  the  blood  red  river  into 
something  new.  What?  McGregor  shook  his  head 
slowly  like  an  animal  in  pain.  He  wanted  some 
thing  for  himself,  for  all  these  men.  It  seemed  to 
him  that  he  would  gladly  lie  dead  like  Nance  Mc 
Gregor  to  know  the  secret  of  that  want. 

And  then  as  though  in  answer  to  the  cry  out  of 
his  heart  the  file  of  marching  men  fell  into  step. 
An  instantaneous  impulse  seemed  to  run  through 
the  ranks  of  stooped  toiling  figures.  Perhaps  they 
also  looking  backward  had  caught  the  magnificence 
of  the  picture  scrawled  across  the  landscape  in  black 
and  red  and  had  been  moved  by  it  so  that  their 
shoulders  straightened  and  the  long  subdued  song 
of  life  began  to  sing  in  their  bodies.  With  a  swing 
the  marching  men  fell  into  step.  Into  the  mind  of 
McGregor  flashed  a  thought  of  another  day  when 
he  had  stood  upon  this  same  hill  with  the  half  crazed 
man  who  stuffed  birds  and  sat  upon  a  log  by  the 
roadside  reading  the  Bible  and  how  he  had  hated 
these  men  because  they  did  not  march  with  orderly 
precision  like  the  soldiers  who  came  to  subdue  them. 
In  a  flash  he  knew  that  he  who  had  hated  the  min 
ers  hated  them  no  more.  With  Napoleonic  insight  he 
read  a  lesson  into  the  accident  of  the  men's  falling 
into  step  behind  his  carriage.  A  big  grim  thought 
flashed  into  his  brain.  "Some  day  a  man  will  come 
who  will  swing  all  of  the  workers  of  the  world  into 


MARCHING  MEN  149 

step  like  that,"  he  thought.  "He  will  make  them 
conquer,  not  one  another  but  the  terrifying  disorder 
of  life.  If  their  lives  have  been  wrecked  by  disor 
der  it  is  not  their  fault.  They  have  been  betrayed 
by  the  ambitions  of  their  leaders,  all  men  have  be 
trayed  them."  McGregor  thought  that  his  mind 
swept  down  over  the  men,  that  the  impulses  of  his 
mind  like  living  things  ran  among  them,  crying  to 
them,  touching  them,  caressing  them.  Love  invaded 
his  spirit  and  made  his  body  tingle.  He  thought  of 
the  workers  in  the  Chicago  warehouse  and  of  the 
millions  of  others  workers  who  in  that  great  city,  in 
all  cities,  everywhere,  went  at  the  end  of  the  day 
shuffling  off  along  the  streets  to  their  houses  carry 
ing  with  them  no  song,  no  hope,  nothing  but  a  few 
paltry  dollars  with  which  to  buy  food  and  keep  the 
endless  hurtful  scheme  of  things  alive.  "There  is  a 
curse  on  my  country,"  he  cried.  "Everyone  has 
come  here  for  gain,  to  grow  rich,  to  achieve.  Sup 
pose  they  should  begin  to  want  to  live  here.  Sup 
pose  they  should  quit  thinking  of  gain,  leaders  and 
followers  of  leaders.  They  are  children.  Suppose 
like  children  they  should  begin  to  play  a  bigger 
game.  Suppose  they  could  just  learn  to  march, 
nothing  else.  Suppose  they  should  begin  to  do  with 
their  bodies  what  their  minds  are  not  strong  enough 
to  do — to  just  learn  the  one  simple  thing,  to  march, 
whenever  two  or  four  or  a  thousand  of  them  get 
together,  to  march." 


150  MARCHING  MEN 

McGregor's  thoughts  moved  him  so  that  he 
wanted  to  yell.  Instead  his  face  grew  stern  and  he 
tried  to  command  himself.  "No,  wait,"  he  whis 
pered.  "Train  yourself.  Here  is  something  to  give 
point  to  your  life.  Be  patient  and  wait."  Again 
his  thoughts  swept  away,  running  down  to  the  ad 
vancing  men.  Tears  came  into  his  eyes.  "Men 
have  taught  them  that  big  lesson  only  when  they 
wanted  to  kill.  This  must  be  different.  Some  one 
must  teach  them  the  big  lesson  just  for  their  own 
sakes,  that  they  also  may  know.  They  must  march 
fear  and  disorder  and  purposelessness  away.  That 
must  come  first." 

McGregor  turned  and  compelled  himself  to  sit 
quietly  beside  the  minister  in  the  carriage.  He  be 
came  bitter  against  the  leaders  of  men,  the  figures 
in  old  history  that  had  once  loomed  so  big  in  his 
mind. 

"They  have  half  taught  them  the  secret  only  to 
betray  them,"  he  muttered.  "The  men  of  books 
and  of  brains  have  done  the  same.  That  loose- 
jawed  fellow  in  the  street  last  night — there  must 
be  thousands  of  such,  talking  until  their  jaws  hang 
loose  like  worn-out  gates.  Words  mean  nothing 
but  when  a  man  marches  with  a  thousand  other  men 
and  is  not  doing  it  for  the  glory  of  some  king,  then 
it  will  mean  something.  He  will  know  then  that 
he  is  a  part  of  something  real  and  he  will  catch 
the  rhythm  of  the  mass  and  glory  in  the  fact  that  he 


MARCHING  MEN  151 

is  a  part  of  the  mass  and  that  the  mass  has  mean 
ing.  He  will  begin  to  feel  great  and  powerful." 
McGregor  smiled  grimly.  "That  is  what  the  great 
leaders  of  armies  have  known,"  he  whispered. 
"And  they  have  sold  men  out.  They  have  used 
that  knowledge  to  subdue  men,  to  make  them  serve 
their  own  little  ends." 

McGregor  continued  to  look  back  at  the  men  and 
in  an  odd  sort  of  way  to  wonder  at  himself  and  the 
thought  that  had  come  to  him.  "It  can  be  done," 
he  presently  said  aloud.  "It  will  be  done  by  some 
one,  sometime.  Why  not  by  me?" 

They  buried  Nance  McGregor  in  the  deep  hole 
dug  by  her  son  before  the  log  on  the  hillside.  On 
the  morning  of  his  arrival  he  had  secured  permis 
sion  of  the  mining  company  who  owned  the  land  to 
make  this  the  burial  place  of  the  McGregors. 

When  the  service  over  the  grave  was  finished  he 
looked  about  him  at  the  miners,  standing  uncovered 
along  the  hill  and  in  the  road  leading  down  into  the 
valley,  and  felt  that  he  should  like  to  tell  them  what 
was  in  his  mind.  He  had  an  impulse  to  jump  upon 
the  log  beside  the  grave  and  in  the  presence  of  the 
green  fields  his  father  loved  and  across  the  grave 
of  Nance  McGregor  shout  to  them  saying,  "Your 
cause  shall  be  my  cause.  My  brain  and  strength 
shall  be  yours.  Your  enemies  I  shall  smite  with  my 
naked  fist."  Instead  he  walked  rapidly  past  them 


152  MARCHING  MEN 

and  topping  the  hill  went  down  toward  the  town 
into  the  gathering  night. 

McGregor  could  not  sleep  on  that  last  night  he 
was  ever  to  spend  in  Coal  Creek.  When  darkness 
came  he  went  along  the  street  and  stood  at  the  foot 
of  the  stairs  leading  to  the  home  of  the  undertaker's 
daughter.  The  emotions  that  had  swept  over  him 
during  the  afternoon  had  subdued  his  spirit  and  he 
wanted  to  be  with  some  one  who  would  also  be  sub 
dued  and  quiet.  When  the  woman  did  not  come 
down  the  stairs  to  stand  in  the  hallway  as  she  had 
done  in  his  boyhood  he  went  up  and  knocked  at 
lier  door.  Together  they  went  along  Main  Street 
and  climbed  the  hill. 

The  undertaker's  daughter  walked  with,  difficulty 
and  was  compelled  to  stop  and  sit  upon  a  stone  by 
the  roadside.  When  she  attempted  to  rise  Mc 
Gregor  gathered  her  into  his  arms  and  when  she 
protested  patted  her  thin  shoulder  with  his  big  hand 
and  whispered  to  her.  "Be  quiet,"  he  said.  "Do 
not  talk  about  anything.  Just  be  quiet." 

The  nights  in  the  hills  above  mining  towns  are 
magnificent.  The  long  valleys,  cut  and  slashed  by 
the  railroads  and  made  ugly  by  the  squalid  little 
houses  of  the  miners  are  half  lost  in  the  soft  black 
ness.  Out  of  the  darkness  sounds  emerge.  Coal 
•cars  creak  and  protest  as  they  are  pushed  along 
rails.  Voices  cry  out.  With  a  long  reverberating 


MARCHING  MEN  153 

rattle  one  of  the  mine  cars  dumps  its  load  down  a 
metal  chute  into  a  car  standing  on  the  railroad 
tracks.  In  the  winter  little  fires  are  started  along 
the  tracks  by  the  workmen  who  are  employed  about 
the  tipple  and  on  summer  nights  the  moon  comes 
out  and  touches  with  wild  beauty  the  banks  of  black 
smoke  that  drift  upward  from  the  long  rows  of 
coke  ovens. 

With  the  sick  woman  in  his  arms  McGregor  sat 
in  silence  on  the  hillside  above  Coal  Creek  and  let 
new  thoughts  and  new  impulses  play  with  his  spirit. 
The  love  for  the  figure  of  his  mother  that  had  come 
to  him  during  the  afternoon  returned  and  he  took 
the  woman  of  the  mine  country  into  his  arms  and 
held  her  closely  against  his  breast. 

The  struggling  man  in  the  hills  of  his  own  coun 
try,  who  was  trying  to  clear  his  soul  of  the  hatred 
of  men  bred  in  him  by  the  disorder  of  life,  lifted 
his  head  and  pressed  the  body  of  the  undertaker's 
daughter  hard  against  his  own  body.  The  woman, 
understanding  his  mood,  picked  with  her  thin 
fingers  at  his  coat  and  wished  she  might  die  there 
in  the  darkness  in  the  arms  of  the  man  she  loved. 
When  he  became  conscious  of  her  presence  and  re 
laxed  the  grip  of  his  arms  about  her  shoulders  she 
lay  still  and  waited  for  him  to  forget  again  and 
again  to  press  her  tightly  and  let  her  feel  in  her 
worn-out  body  his  massive  strength  and  virility. 

"It  is  a  job.    It  is  something  big  I  can  try  to  do," 


154  MARCHING  MEN 

he  whispered  to  himself  and  in  fancy  saw  the  great 
disorderly  city  on  the  western  plains  rocked  by  the 
swing  and  rhythm  of  men,  aroused  and  awakening 
with  their  bodies  a  song  of  new  life. 


BOOK  IV 

CHAPTER   I 

CHICAGO  is  a  vast  city  and  millions  of  people  live 
within  the  limits  of  its  influence.  It  stands  at  the 
heart  of  America  almost  within  sound  of  the  creak 
ing  green  leaves  of  the  corn  in  the  vast  corn  fields 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  It  is  inhabited  by  hordes 
of  men  of  all  nations  who  have  come  across  the  seas 
or  out  of  western  corn-shipping  towns  to  make  their 
fortunes.  On  all  sides  men  are  busy  making  for 
tunes. 

In  little  Polish  villages  the  word  has  been  whis 
pered  about,  "In  America  one  gets  much  money," 
and  adventurous  souls  have  set  forth  only  to  land 
at  last,  a  little  perplexed  and  disconcerted,  in  nar 
row  ill-smelling  rooms  in  Halstead  Street  in  Chi 
cago. 

In  American  villages  the  tale  has  been  told.  Here 
it  has  not  been  whispered  but  shouted.  Magazines 
and  newspapers  have  done  the  job.  The  word  re 
garding  the  making  of  money  runs  over  the  land 


156  MARCHING  MEN 

like  a  wind  among  the  corn.  The  young  men  lis 
ten  and  run  away  to  Chicago.  They  have  vigour 
and  youth  but  in  them  has  been  builded  no  dream, 
no  tradition  of  devotion  to  anything  but  gain. 

Chicago  is  one  vast  gulf  of  disorder.  Here  is  the 
passion  for  gain,  the  very  spirit  of  the  bourgeoise 
gone  drunk  with  desire.  The  result  is  something 
terrible.  Chicago  is  leaderless,  purposeless,  slov 
enly,  down  at  the  heels. 

And  back  of  Chicago  lie  the  long  corn  fields  that 
are  not  disorderly.  There  is  hope  in  the  corn. 
Spring  comes  and  the  corn  is  green.  It  shoots  up 
out  of  the  black  land  and  stands  up  in  orderly  rows. 
The  corn  grows  and  thinks  of  nothing  but  growth. 
Fruition  comes  to  the  corn  and  it  is  cut  down  and 
disappears.  Barns  are  filled  to  bursting  with  the 
yellow  fruit  of  the  corn. 

And  Chicago  has  forgotten  the  lesson  of  the 
corn.  All  men  have  forgotten.  It  has  never  been 
told  to  the  young  men  who  come  out  of  the  corn 
fields  to  live  in  the  city. 

Once  and  once  only  in  modern  times  the  soul  of 
America  was  stirred.  The  Civil  War  swept  like  a 
purifying  fire  through  the  land.  Men  marched  to 
gether  and  knew  the  feel  of  shoulder  to  shoulder  ac 
tion.  Brown  stout  bearded  figures  returned  after 
the  war  to  the  villages.  The  beginning  of  a  litera 
ture  of  strength  and  virility  arose. 

And  then  the  time  of  sorrow  and  of  stirring  effort 


MARCHING  MEN  157- 

passed  and  prosperity  returned.  Only  the  aged  are 
now  cemented  together  by  the  sorrow  of  that  time 
and  there  has  been  no  new  national  sorrow. 

It  is  a  summer  evening  in  America  and  the  citi 
zens  sit  in  their  houses  after  the  effort  of  the  day. 
They  talk  of  the  children  in  school  or  of  the  new 
difficulty  of  meeting  the  high  prices  of  food  stuff. 
In  cities  the  bands  play  in  the  parks.  In  villages 
the  lights  go  out  and  one  hears  the  sound  of  hurry 
ing  horses  on  distant  roads. 

A  thoughtful  man  walking  in  the  streets  of  Chi 
cago  on  such  an  evening  sees  women  in  white  shirt 
waists  and  men  with  cigars  in  their  mouths  who  sit. 
on  the  porches  of  the  houses.  The  man  is  from 
Ohio.  He  owns  a  factory  in  one  of  the  large  in 
dustrial  towns  there  and  has  come  to  the  city  to  sell 
his  product.  He  is  a  man  of  the  better  sort,  quiet, 
efficient,  kindly.  In  his  own  community  every  one 
respects  him  and  he  respects  himself.  Now  he 
walks  and  gives  himself  over  to  thoughts.  He 
passes  a  house  set  among  trees  where  a  man  cuts 
grass  by  the  streaming  light  from  a  window.  The 
song  of  the  lawn  mower  stirs  the  walker.  He  idles 
along  the  street  and  looks  in  through  the  windows  at 
prints  upon  the  walls.  A  white-clad  woman  sits 
playing  on  a  piano.  "Life  is  good,"  he  says,  lighting 
a  cigar;  "it  climbs  on  and  up  toward  a  kind  of  uni 
versal  fairness." 

And  then  in  the  light  from  a  street  lamp  the- 


158  MARCHING  MEN 

walker  sees  a  man  staggering  along  the  sidewalk, 
muttering  and  helping  himself  with  his  hands  upon 
a  wall.  The  sight  does  not  greatly  disturb  the 
pleasant  satisfying  thoughts  that  stir  in  his  mind. 
He  has  eaten  a  good  dinner  at  the  hotel,  he 
knows  that  drunken  men  are  often  but  gay  money- 
spending  dogs  who  to-morrow  morning  will  settle 
down  to  their  work  feeling  secretly  better  for  the 
night  of  wine  and  song. 

My  thoughtful  man  is  an  American  with  the  dis 
ease  of  comfort  and  prosperity  in  his  blood.  He 
strolls  along  and  turns  a  corner.  He  is  satisfied 
with  the  cigar  he  smokes  and,  he  decides,  satisfied 
with  the  age  in  which  he  lives.  "Agitators  may 
howl,"  he  says,  "but  on  the  whole  life  is  good,  and 
as  for  me  I  am  going  to  spend  my  life  attending  to 
the  business  in  hand." 

The  walker  has  turned  a  corner  into  a  side  street. 
Two  men  emerge  from  the  door  of  a  saloon  and 
stand  upon  the  sidewalk  under  a  light.  They  wave 
their  arms  up  and  down.  Suddenly  one  of  them 
springs  forward  and  with  a  quick  forward  thrust  of 
his  body  and  the  flash  of  a  clenched  fist  in  the  lamp 
light  knocks  his  companion  into  the  gutter.  Down 
the  street  he  sees  rows  of  tall  smoke-begrimed  brick 
buildings  hanging  black  and  ominous  against  the 
sky.  At  the  end  of  a  street  a  huge  mechanical  ap 
paratus  lifts  cars  of  coal  and  dumps  them  roaring 


MARCHING  MEN  159 

and  rattling  into  the  bowels  of  a  ship  that  lies  tied 
in  the  river. 

The  walker  throws  his  cigar  away  and  looks 
about.  A  man  walks  before  him  in  the  silent  street. 
He  sees  the  man  raise  his  fist  to  the  sky  and  notes 
with  a  shock  the  movement  of  the  lips  and  the  huge 
ness  and  ugliness  of  the  face  in  the  lamplight. 

Again  he  goes  on,  hurrying  now,  around  another 
corner  into  a  street  filled  with  pawn  shops,  cloth 
ing  stores  and  the  clamour  of  voices.  In  his  mind 
floats  a  picture.  He  sees  two  boys,  clad  in  white 
rompers,  feeding  clover  to  a  tame  rabbit  in  a  sub 
urban  back  lawn  and  wishes  he  were  at  home  in 
his  own  place.  In  his  fancy  the  two  sons  are  walk 
ing  under  apple  trees  and  laughing  and  tusseling  for 
a  great  bundle  of  newly  pulled  sweet  smelling 
clover.  The  strange  looking  red  man  with 
the  huge  face  he  has  seen  in  the  street  is  looking  at 
the  two  children  over  a  garden  wall.  There  is  a 
threat  in  the  look  and  the  threat  alarms  him.  Into 
his  mind  comes  the  notion  that  the  man  who  looks 
over  the  wall  wants  to  destroy  the  future  of  his 
children. 

The  night  advances.  Down  a  stairway  beside  a 
clothing  store  comes  a  woman  with  gleaming  white 
teeth  who  is  clad  in  a  black  dress.  She  makes  a 
peculiar  little  jerking  movement  with  her  head  to 
the  walker.  A  patrol  wagon  with  clanging  bells 
rushes  through  the  street,  two  blue  clad  policemen 


160  MARCHING  MEN 

sitting  stiffly  in  the  seat.  A  boy — he  can't  be  above 
six — runs  along  the  street  pushing  soiled  newspa 
pers  under  the  noses  of  idlers  on  the  corners,  his 
shrill  childish  voice  rises  above  the  din  of  the  trol 
ley  cars  and  the  clanging  notes  of  the  patrol  wagon. 
The  walker  throws  his  cigar  into  the  gutter  and 
climbing  the  steps  of  a  street  car  goes  back  to  his 
hotel.  His  fine  reflective  mood  is  gone.  He  half 
wishes  that  something  lovely  might  come  into 
American  life  but  the  wish  does  not  persist 
He  is  only  irritated  and  feels  that  a  pleasant  eve 
ning  has  been  in  some  way  spoiled.  He  is  wonder 
ing  if  he  will  be  successful  in  the  business  that 
brought  him  to  the  city.  As  he  turns  out  the  light 
in  his  room  and  putting  his  head  upon  the  pillow 
listens  to  the  noises  of  the  city  merged  now  into  a 
quiet  droning  roar  he  thinks  of  the  brick  factory 
on  the  banks  of  the  river  in  Ohio  and  as  he  falls  into 
sleep  the  face  of  the  red-haired  man  lowers  at  him 
from  the  factory  door. 

When  McGregor  returned  to  the  city  after  the 
burial  of  his  mother  he  began  at  once  to  try  to  put 
his  idea  of  the  marching  men  into  form.  For  a 
long  time  he  did  not  know  how  to  begin.  The  idea 
was  vague  and  shadowy.  It  belonged  to  the  nights 
in  the  hills  of  his  own  country  and  seemed  a  little 
absurd  when  he  tried  to  think  of  it  in  the  daylight 
of  North  State  Street  in  Chicago. 


MARCHING  MEN  161 

McGregor  felt  that  he  had  to  prepare  himself. 
He  believed  that  he  could  study  books  and  learn 
much  from  men's  ideas  expressed  in  books  without 
being  overwhelmed  by  their  thoughts.  He  became 
a  student  and  quit  the  place  in  the  apple-warehouse 
to  the  secret  relief  of  the  little  bright-eyed  superin 
tendent  who  had  never  been  able  to  get  himself  up 
to  the  point  of  raging  at  this  big  red  fellow  as  he 
had  raged  at  the  German  before  McGregor's  time. 
The  warehouse  man  felt  that  during  the  meeting 
on  the  corner  before  the  saloon  on  the  day  Mc 
Gregor  began  to  work  for  him  something  had  hap 
pened.  The  miner's  son  had  unmanned  him.  "A 
man  ought  to  be  boss  in  his  own  place,"  he  some 
times  muttered  to  himself,  as  he  walked  in  the  pas 
sageways  among  rows  of  piled  apple  barrels  in  the 
upper  part  of  the  warehouse  wondering  why  the 
presence  of  McGregor  irritated  him. 

From  six  o'clock  in  the  evening  until  two  in  the 
morning  McGregor  now  worked  as  night-cashier  in 
a  restaurant  on  South  State  Street  below  Van 
Buren  and  from  two  until  seven  in  the  morning  he 
slept  in  a  room  whose  windows  looked  down  into 
Michigan  Boulevard.  On  Thursday  he  was  free, 
his  place  being  taken  for  the  evening  by  the  man 
who  owned  the  restaurant,  a  small  excitable  Irish 
man  by  the  name  of  Tom  O'Toole. 

McGregor  got  his  chance  to  become  a  student 
through  the  bank  account  belonging  to  Edith  Car- 


162  MARCHING  MEN 

son.  The  opportunity  arose  in  this  way.  On  a 
summer  evening  after  his  return  from  Pennsylvania 
he  sat  with  her  in  the  darkened  store  back  of  the 
closed  screen  door.  McGregor  was  morose  and 
silent.  On  the  evening  before  he  had  tried  to  talk  to 
several  men  at  the  warehouse  about  the  Marching 
Men  and  they  had  not  understood.  He  blamed  his 
inability  with  words  and  sat  in  the  half  darkness 
with  his  face  in  his  hands  and  looked  up  the  street, 
saying  nothing  and  thinking  bitter  thoughts. 

The  idea  that  had  come  to  him  made  him  half 
drunk  with  its  possibilities  and  he  knew  that  he 
must  not  let  it  make  him  drunk.  He  wanted  to  be 
gin  forcing  men  to  do  the  simple  thing  full  of  mean 
ing  rather  than  the  disorganised  ineffective  things 
and  he  had  an  ever-present  inclination  to  arise,  to 
stretch  himself,  to  run  into  the  streets  and  with  his 
great  arms  see  if  he  could  not  sweep  the  people  be 
fore  him,  starting  them  on  the  long  purposeful 
march  that  was  to  be  the  beginning  of  the  rebirth 
of  the  world  and  that  was  to  fill  with  meaning  the 
lives  of  men.  Then  when  he  had  walked  the  fever 
out  of  his  blood  and  had  frightened  the  people  in 
the  streets  by  the  grim  look  in  his  face  he  tried  to 
school  himself  to  sit  quietly  waiting. 

The  woman  sitting  beside  him  in  a  low  rocking 
chair  began  trying  to  tell  hJm  of  something  that  had 
been  in  her  mind.  Her  heart  jumped  and  she  talked 
slowly,  pausing  between  sentences  to  conceal  the 


MARCHING  MEN  163 

trembling  of  her  voice.  "Would  it  help  you  in 
what  you  want  to  do  if  you  could  quit  at  the  ware 
house  and  spend  your  days  in  study?"  she  asked. 

McGregor  looked  at  her  and  nodded  his  head 
absent-mindedly.  He  thought  of  the  nights  in  his 
room  when  the  hard  heavy  work  of  the  day  in  the 
warehouse  seemed  to  have  benumbed  his  brain. 

"Besides  the  business  here  I  have  seventeen  hun 
dred  dollars  in  the  savings  bank,"  said  Edith,  turn 
ing  aside  to  conceal  the  eager  hopeful  look  in  her 
eyes.  "I  want  to  invest  it.  I  do  not  want  it  lying 
there  doing  nothing.  I  want  you  to  take  it  and 
make  a  lawyer  of  yourself." 

Edith  sat  rigid  in  her  chair  waiting  for  his  an 
swer.  She  felt  that  she  had  put  him  to  a  test.  In 
her  mind  was  a  new  hope.  "If  he  takes  it  he  will 
not  be  walking  out  at  the  door  some  night  and 
never  coming  back." 

McGregor  tried  to  think.  He  had  not  tried  to 
explain  to  her  his  new  notion  of  life  and  did  not 
know  how  to  begin. 

"After  all  why  not  stick  to  my  plan  and  be  a 
lawyer?"  he  asked  himself.  "That  might  open  the 
door.  I'll  do  that,"  he  said  aloud  to  the  woman. 
"Both  you  and  mother  have  talked  of  it  so  I'll  give 
it  a  trial.  Yes,  I'll  take  the  money." 

Again  he  looked  at  her  as  she  sat  before  him 
flushed  and  eager  and  was  touched  by  her  devotion 
as  he  had  been  touched  by  the  devotion  of  the  under- 


164  MARCHING  MEN 

taker's  daughter  in  Coal  Creek.  "I  don't  mind  be 
ing  under  obligations  to  you,"  he  said ;  "I  don't  know 
any  one  else  I  would  take  it  from." 

In  the  street  later  the  troubled  man  walked  about 
trying  to  make  new  plans  for  the  accomplishment 
of  his  purpose.  He  was  annoyed  by  what  he 
thought  to  be  the  dulness  of  his  own  brain  and  he 
thrust  his  fist  up  into  the  air  to  look  at  it  in  the 
lamplight.  "I'll  get  ready  to  use  that  intelligently," 
he  thought ;  "a  man  wants  trained  brains  backed  up 
by  a  big  fist  in  the  struggle  I'm  going  into." 

It  was  then  that  the  man  from  Ohio  walked  past 
with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  attracted  his  at 
tention.  To  McGregor's  nostrils  came  the  odour  of 
rich  fragrant  tobacco.  He  turned  and  stood  star 
ing  at  the  intruder  on  his  thoughts.  "That's  what 
I  am  going  to  fight,"  he  growled;  ''the  comfortable 
well-to-do  acceptance  of  a  disorderly  world,  the 
smug  men  who  see  nothing  wrong  with  a  world 
like  this.  I  would  like  to  frighten  them  so  that 
they  throw  their  cigars  away  and  run  about  like 
ants  when  you  kick  over  ant  hills  in  the  field." 


CHAPTER  II 

MCGREGOR  began  to  attend  some  classes  at  Chi 
cago  University  and  walked  about  among  the  mas 
sive  buildings,  erected  for  the  most  part  through 
the  bounty  of  one  of  his  country's  leading  business 
men,  wondering  why  the  great  centre  of  learning 
seemed  so  little  a  part  of  the  city.  To  him  the 
University  seemed  something  entirely  apart,  not 
in  tune  with  its  surrounding1.  It  was  like  an  ex 
pensive  ornament  worn  on  the  soiled  hand  of  a 
street  urchin.  He  did  not  stay  there  long. 

One  day  he  got  into  disfavour  with  the  professor 
in  one  of  the  classes.  He  sat  in  a  room  among 
other  students,  his  mind  busy  with  thoughts  of  the 
future  and  of  how  he  might  get  his  movement  of 
the  marching  men  under  way.  In  a  chair  beside 
him  sat  a  large  girl  with  blue  eyes  and  hair  like 
yellow  wheat  She  like  McGregor  was  uncon 
scious  of  what  was  going  on  about  her  and  sat 
with  half-closed  eyes  watching  him.  In  the  corners 
of  her  eyes  lurked  a  gleam  of  amusement.  She  drew 
sketches  of  his  huge  mouth  and  nose  on  a  pad  of 
paper. 

165 


i66  MARCHING  MEN 

At  McGregor's  left  with  his  legs  sprawled  into 
the  aisle  sat  a  youth  who  was  thinking  of  the  yel 
low-haired  girl  and  planning  a  campaign  against 
her.  His  father  was  a  manufacturer  of  berry  boxes 
in  a  brick  building  on  the  West  Side  and  he  wished 
he  were  in  school  in  another  city  so  that  it  would 
not  be  necessary  to  live  at  home.  All  day  he  thought 
of  the  evening  meal  and  of  the  coming  of  his 
father,  nervous  and  tired,  to  quarrel  with  his  mother 
about  the  management  of  the  servants.  Now  he 
was  trying  to  evolve  a  plan  for  getting  money  from 
his  mother  with  which  to  enjoy  a  dinner  at  a  down 
town  restaurant.  With  delight  he  contemplated  such 
an  evening  with  a  box  of  cigarettes  on  the  table 
and  the  yellow-haired  girl  sitting  opposite  him  un 
der  red  lights.  He  was  a  typical  American  youth 
of  the  upper  middle  class  and  was  in  the  University 
only  because  he  was  in  no  hurry  to  begin  his  life 
in  the  commercial  world. 

In  front  of  McGregor  sat  another  typical  stu 
dent,  a  pale  nervous  young  man  who  drummed  with 
his  fingers  on  the  back  of  a  book.  He  was  very 
serious  about  acquiring  learning  and  when  the  pro 
fessor  paused  in  his  talk  he  threw  up  his  hands 
and  asked  a  question.  When  the  professor  smiled 
he  laughed  loudly.  He  was  like  an  instrument  on 
which  the  professor  struck  chords. 

The  professor,  a  short  man  with  a  bushy  black 
beard,  heavy  shoulders  and  large  powerful  eye- 


MARCHING  MEN  167 

glasses,  spoke  in  a  shrill  voice  surcharged  with  ex 
citement. 

"The  world  is  full  of  unrest,"  he  said;  "men 
are  struggling  like  chicks  in  the  shell.  In  the  hinter 
land  of  every  man's  mind  uneasy  thoughts  stir.  I 
call  your  attention  to  what  is  going  on  in  the  Uni 
versities  of  Germany." 

The  professor  paused  and  glared  about.  Mc 
Gregor  was  so  irritated  by  what  he  took  to  be  the 
wordiness  of  the  man  that  he  could  not  restrain 
himself.  He  felt  as  he  had  felt  when  the  socialist 
orator  talked  on  the  streets  of  Coal  Creek.  With 
an  oath  he  arose  and  kicked  out  his  foot  to  push 
his  chair  away.  The  pad  of  paper  fell  out  of  the 
large  girl's  lap  and  scattered  its  leaves  about  the 
floor.  A  light  burned  in  McGregor's  blue  eyes.  As 
he  stood  in  the  classroom  before  the  startled  class 
his  head,  big  and  red,  had  something  of  nobility 
about  it  like  the  head  of  a  fine  beast.  His  voice 
rumbled  out  of  his  throat  and  the  girl  looked  at 
him,  her  mouth  standing  open. 

"We  go  from  room  to  room  hearing  talk,"  be 
gan  McGregor.  "On  the  street  corners  downtown 
in  the  evenings  and  in  towns  and  villages  men  talk 
and  talk.  Books  are  written,  jaws  wag.  The  jaws 
of  men  are  loose.  They  wabble  about — saying 
nothing." 

McGregor's  excitement  grew.  "If  there  is  all 
this  unrest  why  does  it  not  come  to  something?" 


i68  MARCHING  MEN 

he  demanded.  "Why  do  not  you  who  have  trained 
brains  strive  to  find  the  secret  of  order  in  the  midst 
of  this  disorder?  Why  is  something  not  done?" 

The  professor  ran  up  and  down  on  the  platform. 
"I  do  not  know  what  you  mean,"  he  cried  nervously. 
McGregor  turned  slowly  and  stared  at  the  class. 
He  tried  to  explain.  "Why  do  not  men  lead  their 
lives  like  men?"  he  asked.  "They  must  be  taught 
to  march,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men.  Do  you 
not  think  so?" 

McGregor's  voice  rose  and  his  great  fist  was 
raised.  "The  world  should  become  a  great  camp," 
he  cried.  "The  brains  of  the  world  should  be  at 
the  organisation  of  mankind.  Everywhere  there  is 
disorder  and  men  chatter  like  monkeys  in  a  cage. 
Why  should  some  man  not  begin  the  organisation 
of  a  new  army?  If  there  are  men  who  do  not  un 
derstand  what  is  meant  let  them  be  knocked  down." 

The  professor  leaned  forward  and  peered  through 
his  spectacles  at  McGregor.  "I  understand  your 
kind,"  he  said,  and  his  voice  trembled.  "The  class 
is  dismissed.  We  deprecate  violence  here." 

The  professor  hurried  through  a  door  and  down 
a  long  hallway  with  the  class  chattering  at  his  heels. 
McGregor  sat  in  his  chair  in  the  empty  class  room 
and  stared  at  the  wall.  As  the  professor  hurried 
away  he  muttered  to  himself:  "What's  getting  in 
here?  What's  getting  into  our  schools?" 


MARCHING  MEN  169 

Late  on  the  following  afternoon  McGregor  sat 
in  his  room  thinking  of  what  had  happened  in  the 
class.  He  had  decided  that  he  would  not  spend 
any  more  time  at  the  University  but  would  devote 
himself  entirely  to  the  study  of  law.  Several  young 
men  came  in. 

Among  the  students  at  the  University  McGregor 
had  seemed  very  old.  Secretly  he  was  much  ad 
mired  and  had  often  been  the  subject  of  talk.  Those 
who  had  now  come  to  see  him  wanted  him  to  join 
a  Greek  Letter  Fraternity.  They  sat  about  his 
room,  on  the  window  sill  and  on  a  trunk  by  the  wall. 
They  smoked  pipes  and  were  boyishly  eager  and 
enthusiastic.  A  glow  shone  in  the  cheeks  of  the 
spokesman — a  clean-looking  youth  with  black  curly 
hair  and  round  pink-and- white  cheeks,  the  son  of  a 
Presbyterian  minister  from  Iowa. 

"You  have  been  picked  by  our  fellows  to  be  one 
of  us,"  said  the  spokesman.  "We  want  you  to  be 
come  an  Alpha  Beta  Pi.  It  is  a  grand  fraternity 
with  chapters  in  the  best  schools  in  the  country. 
Let  me  tell  you." 

He  began  reeling  off  a  list  of  names  of  states 
men,  college  professors,  business  men  and  well 
known  athletes  who  belonged  to  the  order. 

McGregor  sat  by  the  wall  looking  at  his  guests 
and  wondering  what  he  would  say.  He  was  a 
little  amused  and  half  hurt  and  felt  like  a  man 
who  has  had  a  Sunday  School  scholar  stop  him 


170  MARCHING  MEN 

on  the  street  to  ask  him  about  the  welfare  of  his 
soul.  He  thought  of  Edith  Carson  waiting  for  him 
in  her  store  on  Monroe  Street,  of  the  angry  miners 
standing  in  the  saloon  in  Coal  Creek  plotting  to 
break  into  the  restaurant  while  he  sat  with  the 
hammer  in  his  hands  waiting  for  battle,  of  old 
Mother  Misery  walking  at  the  heels  of  the  soldiers' 
horses  through  the  streets  of  the  mining  village, 
and  last  of  all  of  the  terrible  certainty  that  these 
bright-eyed  boys  would  be  destroyed,  swallowed  up 
by  the  huge  commercial  city  in  which  they  were  to 
live. 

"It  means  a  lot  to  be  one  of  us  when  a  chap  gets 
out  into  the  world,"  the  curly-haired  youth  said. 
"It  helps  you  get  on,  get  in  with  the  right  people. 
You  can't  go  on  without  men  you  know.  You  ought 
to  get  in  with  the  best  fellows."  He  hesitated  and 
looked  at  the  floor.  "I  don't  mind  telling  you,"  he 
said  with  an  outburst  of  frankness,  "that  one  of  our 
stronger  men — Whiteside,  the  mathematician — 
wanted  us  to  have  you.  He  said  you  were  worth 
while.  He  thought  you  ought  to  see  us  and  get  to 
know  us  and  that  we  ought  to  see  and  get  to  know 
you." 

McGregor  got  up  and  took  his  hat  from  a  nail 
on  the  wall.  He  felt  the  utter  futility  of  trying  to 
express  what  was  in  his  mind  and  walked  down 
the  stairs  to  the  street  with  the  file  of  boys  follow 
ing  in  embarrassed  silence  and  stumbling  in  the 


MARCHING  MEN  171 

darkness  of  the  hallway  at  his  heels.  At  the  street 
door  he  stopped  and  faced  them,  struggling  to  put 
his  thoughts  into  words. 

"I  can't  do  what  you  ask,"  he  said.  "I  like  you 
and  like  your  asking  me  to  come  in  with  you,  but 
I'm  going  to  quit  the  University."  His  voice  soft 
ened.  "I  would  like  to  have  you  for  friends,"  he 
added.  "You  say  a  man  needs  to  know  people 
after  awhile.  Well,  I  would  like  to  know  you  while 
you  are  what  you  are  now.  I  don't  want  to  know 
you  after  you  become  what  you  will  become." 

McGregor  turned  and  ran  down  the  remaining 
steps  to  the  stone  sidewalk  and  went  rapidly  up 
the  street.  A  stern  hard  look  was  in  his  face 
and  he  knew  he  would  spend  a  silent  night  think 
ing  of  what  had  happened.  "I  hate  hitting  boys," 
he  thought  as  he  hurried  away  to  his  evening's  work 
at  the  restaurant. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHEN  McGregor  was  admitted  to  the  bar  and 
ready  to  take  his  place  among  the  thousands  of 
young  lawyers  scattered  over  the  Chicago  loop  dis 
trict  he  half  drew  back  from  beginning  the  prac 
tice  of  his  profession.  To  spend  his  life  quibbling 
over  trifles  with  other  lawyers  was  not  what  he 
wanted.  To  have  his  place  in  life  fixed  by  his  ability 
in  quibbling  seemed  to  him  hideous. 

Night  after  night  he  walked  alone  in  the  streets 
thinking  of  the  matter.  He  grew  angry  and  swore. 
Sometimes  he  was  so  stirred  by  the  meaningless- 
ness  of  whatever  way  of  life  offered  itself  that 
he  was  tempted  to  leave  the  city  and  become  a 
tramp,  one  of  the  hordes  of  adventurous  dissatis 
fied  souls  who  spend  their  lives  drifting  back  and 
forth  along  the  American  railroads. 

He  continued  to  work  in  the  South  State  Street 
restaurant  that  got  its  patronage  from  the  under 
world.  In  the  evenings  from  six  until  twelve  trade 
was  quiet  and  he  sat  reading  books  and  watching  the 
restless  thrashing  crowds  that  passed  the  window. 
Sometimes  he  became  so  absorbed  that  one  of  the 
guests  sidled  past  and  escaped  through  the  door 

172 


MARCHING  MEN  173 

without  paying  his  bill.  In  State  Street  the  people 
moved  up  and  down  nervously,  wandering  here  and 
there,  going  without  purpose  like  cattle  confined  in 
a  corral.  Women  in  cheap  imitations  of  the  gowns 
worn  by  their  sisters  two  blocks  away  in  Michigan 
Avenue  and  with  painted  faces  leered  at  the  men. 
In  gaudily  lighted  store-rooms  that  housed  cheap 
suggestive  shows  pianos  kept  up  a  constant  din. 

In  the  eyes  of  the  people  who  idled  away  the 
evenings  in  South  State  Street  was  the  vacant  pur 
poseless  stare  of  modern  life  accentuated  and  made 
horrible.  With  the  stare  went  the  shuffling  walk, 
the  wagging  jaw,  the  saying  of  words  meaning 
nothing.  On  the  wall  of  a  building  opposite  the 
door  of  the  restaurant  hung  a  banner  marked  "So 
cialist  Headquarters."  There  where  modern  life 
had  found  well-nigh  perfect  expression,  where  there 
was  no  discipline  and  no  order,  where  men  did  not 
move,  but  drifted  like  sticks  on  a  sea-washed  beach, 
hung  the  socialist  banner  with  its  promise  of  the 
co-operative  commonwealth. 

McGregor  looked  at  the  banner  and  at  the  mov 
ing  people  and  was  lost  in  meditation.  Walking 
from  behind  the  cashier's  desk  he  stood  in  the 
street  by  the  door  and  stared  about.  A  fire  began 
to  burn  in  his  eyes  and  the  fists  that  were  thrust 
into  his  coat  pockets  were  clenched.  Again  as  when 
he  was  a  boy  in  Coal  Creek  he  hated  the  people. 
The  fine  love  of  mankind  that  had  its  basis  in  a 


174  MARCHING  MEN 

dream  of  mankind  galvanised  by  some  great  passion 
into  order  and  meaning  was  lost. 

In  the  restaurant  after  midnight  trade  briskened. 
Waiters  and  bartenders  from  fashionable  restau 
rants  of  the  loop  district  began  to  drop  in  to  meet 
friends  from  among  the  women  of  the  town.  When 
a  woman  came  in  she  walked  up  to  one  of  these 
young  men.  "What  kind  of  a  night  have  you  had?" 
they  asked  each  other. 

The  visiting  waiters  stood  about  and  talked  in  low 
tones.  As  they  talked  they  absentmindedly  prac 
tised  the  art  of  withholding  money  from  customers, 
a  source  of  income  to  them.  They  played  with 
coins,  pitched  them  into  the  air,  palmed  them,  made 
them  appear  and  disappear  with  marvellous  rapidity. 
Some  of  them  sat  on  stools  along  the  counter  eat 
ing  pie  and  drinking  cups  of  hot  coffee. 

A  cook  clad  in  a  long  dirty  apron  came  into 
the  room  from  the  kitchen  and  putting  a  dish  on 
the  counter  stood  eating  its  contents.  He  tried 
to  win  the  admiration  of  the  idlers  by  boasting.  In 
a  blustering  voice  he  called  familiarly  to  women 
seated  at  tables  along  the  wall.  At  some  time  in 
his  life  the  cook  had  worked  for  a  travelling  circus 
and  he  talked  continually  of  his  adventures  on  the 
road,  striving  to  make  himself  a  hero  in  the  eyes 
of  his  audience. 

McGregor  read  the  book  that  lay  before  him  on 
the  counter  and  tried  to  forget  the  squalid  dis- 


MARCHING  MEN  175 

order  of  his  surroundings.  Again  he  read  of  the 
great  figures  of  history,  the  soldiers  and  statesmen 
who  have  been  leaders  of  men.  When  the  cook 
asked  him  a  question  or  made  some  remark  in 
tended  for  his  ears  he  looked  up,  nodded  and  read 
again.  When  a  disturbance  started  in  the  room 
he  growled  out  a  command  and  the  disturbance  sub 
sided.  From  time  to  time  well  dressed  middle- 
aged  men,  half  gone  in  drink,  came  and  leaned  over 
the  counter  to  whisper  to  him.  He  made  a  mo 
tion  with  his  hand  to  one  of  the  women  sitting 
at  the  tables  along  the  wall  and  idly  playing  with 
toothpicks.  When  she  came  to  him  he  pointed  to 
the  man  and  said,  "He  wants  to  buy  you  a  dinner." 

The  women  of  the  underworld  sat  at  the  tables 
and  talked  of  McGregor,  each  secretly  wishing  he 
might  become  her  lover.  They  gossiped  like  subur 
ban  wives,  filling  their  talk  with  vague  reference 
to  things  he  had  said.  They  commented  upon  his 
clothes  and  his  reading.  When  he  looked  at  them 
they  smiled  and  stirred  uneasily  about  like  timid 
children. 

One  of  the  women  of  the  underworld,  a  thin 
woman  with  hollow  red  cheeks,  sat  at  a  table  talk 
ing  with  the  other  women  of  the  raising  of  white 
leghorn  chickens.  She  and  her  husband,  a  fat  old 
man,  a  waiter  in  a  loop  restaurant,  had  bought  a 
ten-acre  farm  in  the  country  and  she  was  helping 
to  pay  for  it  with  the  money  made  in  the  streets 


176  MARCHING  MEN 

in  the  evening.  A  small  black-eyed  woman  who  sat 
beside  the  chicken  raiser  reached  up  to  a  raincoat 
hanging  on  the  wall  and  taking  a  piece  of  white 
cloth  from  the  pocket  began  to  work  out  a  design 
in  pale  blue  flowers  for  the  front  of  a  shirtwaist 
A  youth  with  unhealthy  looking  skin  sat  on  a  stool 
by  the  counter  talking  to  a  waiter. 

"The  reformers  have  raised  hell  with  business," 
the  youth  boasted  as  he  looked  about  to  be  sure 
of  listeners.  "I  used  to  have  four  women  work 
ing*  for  me  here  in  State  Street  in  World's  Fair  year 
and  now  I  have  only  one  and  she  crying  and  sick 
half  the  time." 

McGregor  stopped  reading  the  book.  "In  every 
city  there  is  a  vice  spot,  a  place  from  which  dis 
eases  go  out  to  poison  the  people.  The  best  legis 
lative  brains  in  the  world  have  made  no  progress 
against  this  evil,"  it  said. 

He  closed  the  book,  threw  it  away  from  him  and 
looked  at  his  big  fist  lying  on  the  counter  and  at 
the  youth  talking  boastfully  to  the  waiter.  A  smile 
played  about  the  corners  of  his  mouth.  He  opened 
and  closed  his  fist  reflectively.  Then  taking  a  law 
book  from  a  shelf  below  the  counter  he  began 
reading  again,  moving  his  lips  and  resting  his  head 
upon  his  hands. 

McGregor's  law  office  was  upstairs  over  a  second 
hand  clothing  store  in  Van  Buren  Street.  There  he 
sat  at  his  desk  reading  and  waiting  and  at  night 


MARCHING  MEN  177 

he  returned  to  the  State  Street  restaurant.  Now  and 
then  he  went  to  the  Harrison  Street  police  station 
to  hear  a  police  court  trial  and  through  the  influ 
ence  of  O'Toole  was  occasionally  given  a  case  that 
netted  him  a  few  dollars.  He  tried  to  think  that 
the  years  spent  in  Chicago  were  years  of  training. 
In  his  own  mind  he  knew  what  he  wanted  to  do 
but  did  not  know  how  to  begin.  Instinctively  he 
waited.  He  saw  the  march  and  countermarch  of 
events  in  the  lives  of  the  people  tramping  on  the 
sidewalks  below  his  office  window,  saw  in  his  mind 
the  miners  of  the  Pennsylvania  village  coming  down 
from  the  hills  to  disappear  below  the  ground,  looked 
at  the  girls  hurrying  through  the  swinging  doors  of 
department  stores  in  the  early  morning,  wondering 
which  of  them  would  presently  sit  idling  with  tooth 
picks  in  O'Toole's  and  waited  for  the  word  or  the 
stir  on  the  surface  of  that  sea  of  humanity  that 
would  be  a  sign  to  him.  To  an  onlooker  he  might 
have  seemed  but  another  of  the  wasted  men  of 
modern  life,  a  drifter  on  the  sea  of  things — but  it 
was  not  so.  The  people  plunging  through  the 
streets  afire  with  earnestness  concerning  nothing 
had  not  succeeded  in  sucking  him  into  the  whirlpool 
of  commercialism  in  which  they  struggled  and  into 
which  year  after  year  the  best  of  America's  youth 
was  drawn. 

The  idea  that  had  come  into  his  mind  as  he  sat  on 
the  hill  above  the  mining  town  grew  and  grew. 


178  MARCHING  MEN 

Day  and  night  he  dreamed  of  the  actual  physical 
phenomena  of  the  men  of  labour  marching  their 
way  into  power  and  of  the  thunder  of  a  million 
feet  rocking  the  world  and  driving  the  great  song 
of  order  purpose  and  discipline  into  the  soul  of 
Americans. 

Sometimes  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  dream  would 
never  be  more  than  a  dream.  In  the  dusty  little 
office  he  sat  and  tears  came  into  his  eyes.  At  such 
times  he  was  convinced  that  mankind  would  go 
on  forever  along  the  old  road,  that  youth  would 
continue  always  to  grow  into  manhood,  become 
fat,  decay  and  die  with  the  great  swing  and  rhythm 
of  life  a  meaningless  mystery  to  them.  "They  will 
see  the  seasons  and  the  planets  marching  through 
space  but  they  will  not  march,"  he  muttered,  and 
went  to  stand  by  the  window  and  stare  down  into 
the  dirt  and  disorder  of  the  street  below. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IN  the  office  McGregor  occupied  in  Van  Buren 
Street  there  was  another  desk  besides  his  own.  The 
desk  was  owned  by  a  small  man  with  an  extraordi 
nary  long  moustache  and  with  grease  spots  on  the 
lapel  of  his  coat.  In  the  morning  he  came  in  and 
sat  in  his  chair  with  his  feet  on  his  desk.  He  smoked 
long  black  stogies  and  read  the  morning  papers. 
On  the  glass  panel  of  the  door  was  the  inscription, 
"Henry  Hunt,  Real  Estate  Broker."  When  he  had 
finished  with  the  morning  papers  he  disappeared, 
returning  tired  and  dejected  late  in  the  afternoon. 

The  real  estate  business  of  Henry  Hunt  was  a 
myth.  Although  he  bought  and  sold  no  property 
he  insisted  on  the  title  and  had  in  his  desk  a  pile 
of  letterheads  setting  forth  the  kind  of  property 
in  which  he  specialised.  He  had  a  picture  of  his 
daughter,  a  graduate  of  the  Hyde  Park  High 
School,  in  a  glass  frame  on  the  wall.  When  he 
went  out  at  the  door  in  the  morning  he  paused  to 
look  at  McGregor  and  said,  "If  any  one  comes  in 
about  property  tend  to  them  for  me.  I'll  be  gone 
for  a  while." 

Henry  Hunt  was  a  collector  of  tithes  for  the 
179 


i8o  MARCHING  MEN 

political  bosses  of  the  first  ward.  All  day  he  went 
from  place  to  place  through  the  ward  interviewing 
women,  checking  their  names  off  a  little  red  book 
he  carried  in  his  pocket,  promising,  demanding, 
making  veiled  threats.  In  the  evening  he  sat  in  his 
flat  overlooking  Jackson  Park  and  listened  to  his 
daughter  play  on  the  piano.  With  all  his  heart 
he  hated  his  place  in  life  and  as  he  rode  back  and 
forth  to  town  on  the  Illinois  Central  trains  he  stared 
at  the  lake  and  dreamed  of  owning  a  farm  and  liv 
ing  a  free  life  in  the  country.  In  his  mind  he  could 
see  the  merchants  standing  gossiping  on  the  side 
walk  before  the  stores  in  an  Ohio  village  where 
he  had  lived  as  a  boy  and  in  fancy  saw  himself 
again  a  boy,  driving  cows  through  the  village  street 
in  the  evening  and  making  a  delightful  little  slap 
slap  with  his  bare  feet  in  the  deep  dust. 

It  was  Henry  Hunt  in  his  secret  office  as  col 
lector  and  lieutenant  to  the  "boss"  of  the  first  ward 
who  shifted  the  scenes  for  McGregor's  appearance 
as  a  public  character  in  Chicago. 

One  night  a  young  man — son  of  one  of  the  city's 
plunging  millionaire  wheat  speculators — was  found 
dead  in  a  little  blind  alley  back  of  a  resort  known 
as  Polk  Street  Mary's  place.  He  lay  crumpled  up 
against  a  board  fence  quite  dead  and  with  a  bruise 
on  the  side  of  his  head.  A  policeman  found  him 
and  dragged  him  to  the  street  light  at  the  corner 
of  the  alley. 


MARCHING  MEN  181 

For  twenty  minutes  the  policeman  had  been  stand 
ing  under  the  light  swinging  his  stick.  He  had 
heard  nothing.  A  young  man  came  up,  touched 
him  on  the  arm  and  whispered  to  him.  When  he 
turned  to  go  down  the  alley  the  young  man  ran 
away  up  the  street. 

The  powers  that  rule  the  first  ward  in  Chicago 
were  furious  when  the  identity  of  the  dead  man 
became  known.  The  "boss,"  a  mild-looking  blue- 
eyed  little  man  in  a  neat  grey  suit  and  with  a  silky 
moustache,  stood  in  his  office  opening  and  closing 
his  fists  convulsively.  Then  he  called  a  young  man 
and  sent  for  Henry  Hunt  and  a  well  known  police 
official. 

For  some  weeks  the  newspapers  of  Chicago  had 
been  conducting  a  campaign  against  vice.  Swarms 
of  reporters  had  over-run  the  ward.  Daily  they 
issued  word  pictures  of  life  in  the  underworld.  On 
the  front  pages  of  the  papers  with  senators  and 
governors  and  millionaires  who  had  divorced  their 
wives,  appeared  also  the  names  of  Ugly  Brown 
Chophouse  Sam  and  Carolina  Kate  with  descrip 
tions  of  their  places,  their  hours  of  closing  and  the 
class  and  quantity  of  their  patronage.  A  drunken 
man  rolled  on  the  floor  at  the  back  of  a  Twenty- 
second  Street  saloon  and  robbed  of  his  pocketbook 
had  his  picture  on  the  front  page  of  the  morning 
papers. 


182  MARCHING  MEN 

Henry  Hunt  sat  in  his  office  on  Van  Buren  Street 
trembling  with  fright.  He  expected  to  see  his  name 
in  the  paper  and  his  occupation  disclosed. 

The  powers  that  ruled  the  First — quiet  shrewd 
men  who  knew  how  to  make  and  to  take  profits, 
the  very  flower  of  commercialism — were  fright 
ened.  They  saw  in  the  prominence  of  the  dead  man 
a  real  opportunity  for  their  momentary  enemies  the 
press.  For  weeks  they  had  been  sitting  quietly, 
weathering  the  storm  of  public  disapproval.  In 
their  minds  they  thought  of  the  ward  as  a  kingdom 
in  itself,  something  foreign  and  apart  from  the 
city.  Among  their  followers  were  men  who  had 
not  been  across  the  Van  Buren  Street  line  into  for 
eign  territory  for  years. 

Suddenly  through  the  minds  of  these  men  floated 
a  menace.  Like  the  small  soft-speaking  boss  the 
ward  gripped  its  fist  conclusively.  Through  the 
streets  and  alleys  ran  a  cry,  a  warning.  Like  birds 
of  prey  disturbed  in  their  nesting  places  they  flut 
tered,  uttering  cries.  Throwing  his  stogie  into  the 
gutter  Henry  Hunt  ran  through  the  ward.  From 
house  to  house  he  uttered  his  cry — "Lay  low !  Pull 
off  nothing." 

The  little  boss  in  his  office  at  the  front  of  his 
saloon  looked  from  Henry  Hunt  to  the  police  of 
ficial.  "It  is  no  time  for  hesitation,"  he  said.  "It 
will  prove  a  boon  if  we  act  quickly.  We  have  got 


MARCHING  MEN  183 

to  arrest  and  try  that  murderer  and  do  it  now.  Who 
is  our  man?  Quick.  Let's  have  action." 

Henry  Hunt  lighted  a  fresh  stogie.  He  played 
nervously  with  the  ends  of  his  fingers  and  wished 
he  were  out  of  the  ward  and  safely  out  of  range 
of  the  prying  eyes  of  the  press.  In  fancy  he  could 
hear  his  daughter  screaming  with  horror  at  the  sight 
of  his  name  spread  in  glaring  letters  before  the 
world  and  thought  of  her  with  a  flush  of  abhor 
rence  on  her  young  face  turning  from  him  forever. 
In  his  terror  his  mind  darted  here  and  there.  A 
name  sprang  to  his  lips.  "It  might  have  been  Andy 
Brown,"  he  said,  puffing  at  the  stogie. 

The  little  boss  whirled  his  chair  about  He  be 
gan  picking  up  the  papers  scattered  about  his  desk. 
When  he  spoke  his  voice  was  again  soft  and  mild. 
"It  was  Andy  Brown,"  he  said.  "Whisper  the  word 
about.  Let  a  Tribune  man  locate  Brown  for  you. 
Handle  this  right  and  you  will  save  your  own  scalp 
and  get  the  fool  papers  off  the  back  of  the  First." 

The  arrest  of  Brown  brought  respite  to  the  ward. 
The  prediction  of  the  shrewd  little  boss  made  good. 
The  newspapers  dropped  the  clamorous  cry  for  re 
form  and  began  demanding  instead  the  life  of  An 
drew  Brown.  Newspaper  artists  rushed  into  po 
lice  headquarters  and  made  hurried  sketches  to  ap 
pear  an  hour  later  blazoned  across  the  face  of  ex 
tras  on  the  streets.  Grave  scientific  men  got  their 


184  MARCHING  MEN 

pictures  printed  at  the  heads  of  articles  on  "Crim 
inal  Characteristics  of  the  Head  and  Face." 

An  adept  and  imaginative  writer  for  an  afternoon 
paper  spoke  of  Brown  as  a  Jekyll  and  Hyde  of  the 
Tenderloin  and  hinted  at  other  murders  by  the  same 
hand.  From  the  comparatively  quiet  life  of  a  not 
markedly  industrious  yegg-man  Brown  came  out  of 
the  upper  floor  of  a  State  Street  lodging  house  to 
stand  stoically  before  the  world  of  men — a  storm 
centre  about  which  swirled  and  eddied  the  wrath 
of  an  aroused  city. 

The  thought  that  had  flashed  into  the  mind  of 
Henry  Hunt  as  he  sat  in  the  office  of  the  soft-voiced 
boss  was  the  making  of  an  opportunity  for  Mc 
Gregor.  For  months  he  and  Andrew  Brown  had 
been  friends.  The  yeggman,  a  strongly  built  slow 
talking  man,  looked  like  a  skilled  mechanic  of  a 
locomotive  engineer.  Coming  into  O'Toole's  in  the 
quiet  hours  between  eight  and  twelve  he  sat  eat 
ing  his  evening  meal  and  talking  in  a  half  banter 
ing  humorous  vein  to  the  young  lawyer.  In  his 
eyes  lurked  a  kind  of  hard  cruelty  tempered  by 
indolence.  It  was  he  who  gave  McGregor  the  name 
that  still  clings  to  him  in  that  strange  savage  land — 
"Judge  Mac,  the  Big  'un." 

When  he  was  arrested  Brown  sent  for  McGregor 
and  offered  to  give  him  charge  of  his  case.  When 
the  young  lawyer  refused  he  was  insistent.  In  a 
cell  at  the  county  jail  they  talked  it  over.  By  the 


MARCHING  MEN  185 

door  stood  a  guard  watching  them.  McGregor 
peered  into  the  half  darkness  and  said'  what  he 
thought  should  be  said.  "You  are  in  a  hole,"  he 
began.  "You  don't  want  me,  you  want  a  big  name. 
They're  all  set  to  hang  you  over  there."  He  waved 
his  hand  in  the  direction  of  the  First.  "They're 
going  to  hand  you  over  as  an  answer  to  a  stirred 
up  city.  It's  a  job  for  the  biggest  and  best  crim 
inal  lawyer  in  town.  Name  the  man  and  I'll  get 
him  for  you  and  help  raise  the  money  to  pay  him," 

Andrew  Brown  got  up  and  walked  to  McGregor. 
Looking  down  at  him  he  spoke  quickly  and  de 
terminedly.  "You  do  what  I  say,"  he  growled. 
"You  take  this  case.  I  didn't  do  the  job.  I  was 
asleep  in  my  room  when  it  was  pulled  off.  Now 
you  take  the  case.  You  won't  clear  me.  It  ain't 
in  the  cards.  But  you  get  the  job  just  the  same." 

He  sat  down  again  upon  the  iron  cot  at  the  cor 
ner  of  the  cell.  His  voice  became  slow  and  had 
in  it  a  touch  of  cynical  humour.  "Look  here,  Big 
'un,"  he  said,  "the  gang's  picked  my  number  out 
of  the  hat.  I'm  going  across  but  there's  good  ad 
vertising  in  the  job  for  some  one  and  you  get  it" 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  trial  of  Andrew  Brown  was  both  an  oppor 
tunity  and  a  test  for  McGregor.  For  a  number  of 
years  he  had  lived  a  lonely  life  in  Chicago.  He  had 
made  no  friends  and  his  mind  had  not  been  confused 
by  the  endless  babble  of  small  talk  on  which  most 
of  us  subsist.  Evening  after  evening  he  had  walked 
alone  through  the  streets  and  had  stood  at  the  door 
of  the  State  Street  restaurant  a  solitary  figure  aloof 
from  life.  Now  he  was  to  be  drawn  into  the 
maelstrom.  In  the  past  he  had  been  let  alone  by 
life.  The  great  blessing  of  isolation  had  been  his 
and  in  his  isolation  he  had  dreamed  a  big  dream. 
Now  the  quality  of  the  dream  and  the  strength  of 
its  hold  upon  him  was  to  be  tested. 

McGregor  was  not  to  escape  the  influence  of  the 
life  of  his  day.  Deep  human  passion  lay  asleep  in 
his  big  body.  Before  the  time  of  his  Marching 
Men  he  had  yet  to  stand  the  most  confusing  of  all 
the  modern  tests  of  men,  the  beauty  of  meaningless 
women  and  the  noisy  clamour  of  success  that  is 
equally  meaningless. 

On  the  day  of  his  conversation  with  Andrew 
Brown  in  the  old  Cook  County  jail  on  Chicago's 

1 86 


MARCHING  MEN  187 

North  Side  we  are  therefore  to  think  of  McGregor 
as  facing  these  tests.  After  the  talk  with  Brown 
he  walked  along  the  street  and  came  to  the  bridge 
that  led  over  the  river  into  the  loop  district.  In 
his  heart  he  knew  that  he  was  facing  a  fight  and 
the  thought  thrilled  him.  With  a  new  lift  to  his 
shoulders  he  walked  over  the  bridge.  He  looked  at 
the  people  and  again  let  his  heart  be  filled  with  con 
tempt  for  them. 

He  wished  that  the  fight  for  Brown  were  a  fight 
with  fists.  Boarding  a  west  side  car  he  sat  look 
ing  out  through  the  car  window  at  the  passing  crowd 
and  imagined  himself  among  them,  striking  right 
and  left,  gripping  throats,  demanding  the  truth  that 
would  save  Brown  and  set  himself  up  before  the 
eyes  of  men. 

When  McGregor  got  to  the  Monroe  Street  mil 
linery  store  it  was  evening  and  Edith  was  prepar 
ing  to  go  out  to  the  evening  meal.  He  stood  look 
ing  at  her.  In  his  voice  rang  a  note  of  triumph. 
Out  of  his  contempt  for  the  men  and  women  of 
the  underworld  came  boastfulness.  "They  have 
given  me  a  job  they  think  I  can't  do,"  he  said.  "I'm 
to  be  Brown's  counsel  in  the  big  murder  case." 
He  put  his  hands  on  her  frail  shoulders  and  pulled 
her  to  the  light.  "I'm  going  to  knock  them  over 
and  show  them,"  he  boasted.  "They  think  they're 
going  to  hang  Brown — the  oily  snakes.  Well  they 
didn't  count  on  me.  Brown  doesn't  count  on  me. 


i88  MARCHING  MEN 

I'm  going  to  show  them."  He  laughed  noisily  in 
the  empty  shop. 

At  a  little  restaurant  McGregor  and  Edith  talked 
of  the  test  he  was  to  go  through.  As  he  talked  she 
sat  in  silence  and  looked  at  his  red  hair. 

"Find  out  if  your  man  Brown  has  a  sweetheart," 
she  said,  thinking  of  herself. 

America  is  the  land  of  murders.  Day  after  day 
in  cities  and  towns  and  on  lonely  country  roads 
violent  death  creeps  upon  men.  Undisciplined  and 
disorderly  in  their  way  of  life  the  citizens  can  do 
nothing.  After  each  murder  they  cry  out  for  new 
laws  which,  when  they  are  written  into  the  books 
of  laws,  the  very  lawmaker  himself  breaks.  Har 
ried  through  life  by  clamouring  demands,  their  days 
leave  them  no  time  for  the  quietude  in  which 
thoughts  grow.  After  days  of  meaningless  hurry 
in  the  city  they  jump  upon  trains  or  street  cars  and 
hurry  through  their  favourite  paper  to  the  ball 
game,  the  comic  pictures  and  the  market  reports. 

And  then  something  happens.  The  moment  ar 
rives.  A  murder  that  might  have  got  a  single 
column  on  an  inner  page  of  yesterday's  paper  to 
day  spreads  its  terrible  details  over  everything. 

Through  the  streets  hurry  the  restless  scurrying 
newsboys,  stirring  the  crowds  with  their  cries.  The 
men  who  have  passed  impatiently  the  tales  of  a  city's 


MARCHING  MEN  189 

shame  snatch  the  papers  and  read  eagerly  and  ex 
haustively  the  story  of  a  crime. 

And  into  the  midst  of  such  a  maelstrom  of  ru 
mours,  hideous  impossible  stories  and  well-laid  plans 
to  defeat  the  truth,  McGregor  hurled  himself.  Day 
after  day  he  wandered  through  the  vice  district 
south  of  Van  Buren  Street.  Prostitutes,  pimps, 
thieves  and  saloon  hangers-on  looked  at  him  and 
smiled  knowingly.  As  the  days  passed  and  he  made 
no  progress  he  became  desperate.  One  day  an  idea 
came  to  him.  "I'll  go  to  the  good  looking  woman 
at  the  settlement  house,"  he  told  himself.  "She 
won't  know  who  killed  the  boy  but  she  can  find 
out.  I'll  make  her  find  out." 

In  Margaret  Ormsby  McGregor  was  to  know 
what  was  to  him  a  new  kind  of  womanhood,  some 
thing  sure,  reliant,  hedged  about  and  prepared  as 
a  good  soldier  is  prepared,  to  have  the  best  of  it  in 
the  struggle  for  existence.  Something  he  had  not 
known  was  yet  to  make  its  cry  to  the  man. 

Margaret  Ormsby  like  McGregor  himself  had 
not  been  defeated  by  life.  She  was  the  daughter 
of  David  Ormsby,  head  of  the  great  plough  trust 
with  headquarters  in  Chicago,  a  man  who  because  of 
a  certain  fine  assurance  in  his  attitude  toward  life 
had  been  called  "Ormsby  the  Prince"  by  his  associ 
ates.  Her  mother  Laura  Ormsby  was  small  nerv 
ous  and  intense. 


190  MARCHING  MEN 

With  a  self-conscious  abandonment,  lacking  just 
a  shade  of  utter  security,  Margaret  Ormsby,  beauti 
ful  in  body  and  beautifully  clad,  went  here  and  there 
among  the  outcasts  of  the  First  Ward.  She  like 
all  women  was  waiting  for  an  opportunity  of  which 
she  did  not  talk  even  to  herself.  She  was  some 
thing  for  the  single-minded  and  primitive  McGregor 
to  approach  with  caution. 

Hurrying  along  a  narrow  street  lined  with  cheap 
saloons  McGregor  went  in  at  the  door  of  the  set 
tlement  house  and  sat  in  a  chair  at  a  desk  facing 
Margaret  Ormsby.  He  knew  something  of  her 
work  in  the  First  Ward  and  that  she  was  beautiful 
and  self-possessed.  He  was  determined  that  she 
should  help  him.  Sitting  in  the  chair  and  look 
ing  at  her  across  the  flat-top  desk  he  choked  back 
into  her  throat  the  terse  sentences  with  which  she 
was  wont  to  greet  visitors. 

"It  is  all  very  well  for  you  to  sit  there  dressed 
up  and  telling  me  what  women  in  your  position  can 
do  and  can't  do,"  he  said,  "but  I've  come  here  to 
tell  you  what  you  will  do  if  you  are  of  the  kind 
that  want  to  be  useful." 

The  speech  of  McGregor  was  a  challenge  which 
Margaret,  the  modern  daughter  of  one  of  our  mod 
ern  great  men,  could  not  well  let  pass.  Had  she 
not  brazened  out  her  timidity  to  go  calmly  among 
prostitutes  and  sordid  muttering  drunkards,  serene 


MARCHING  MEN  191 

in  her  consciousness  of  business-like  purpose? 
"What  is  it  you  want?"  she  asked  sharply. 

"You  have  just  two  things  that  will  help  me," 
said  McGregor;  "your  beauty  and  your  virginity. 
These  things  are  a  kind  of  magnet,  drawing  the 
women  of  the  street  to  you.  I  know.  I've  heard 
them  talk. 

"There  are  women  who  come  in  here  who  know 
who  it  was  killed  that  boy  in  the  passageway  and 
why  it  was  done,"  McGregor  went  on.  "You're 
a  fetish  with  these  women.  They  are  children  and 
they  come  in  here  to  look  at  you  as  children  peep 
around  curtains  at  guests  sitting  in  the  parlour  of 
their  houses. 

"Well  I  want  you  to  call  these  children  into  the 
room  and  let  them  tell  you  family  secrets.  The 
whole  ward  here  knows  the  story  of  that  killing. 
The  air  is  filled  with  it.  The  men  and  women  keep 
trying  to  tell  me,  but  they're  afraid.  The  police 
have  them  scared  and  they  half -tell  me  and  then 
run  away  like  frightened  animals. 

"I  want  them  to  tell  you.  You  don't  count  with 
the  police  down  here.  They  think  you're  too  beau 
tiful  and  too  good  to  touch  the  real  life  of  these 
people.  None  of  them — the  bosses  or  the  police — 
are  watching  you.  I'll  keep  kicking  up  dust  and 
you  get  the  information  I  want.  You  can  do  the 
job  if  you're  any  good." 

After  McGregor's  speech  the  woman  sat  in  silence. 


192  MARCHING  MEN 

and  looked  at  him.  For  the  first  time  she  had  met  a 
man  who  overwhelmed  her  and  was  in  no  way  di 
verted  by  her  beauty  nor  her  self-possession.  A 
hot  wave,  half  anger,  half  admiration,  swept  over 
her. 

McGregor  stared  at  the  woman  and  waited. 
"I've  got  to  have  facts,"  he  said.  "Give  me  the 
story  and  the  names  of  those  who  know  the  story 
and  I'll  make  them  tell.  I  have  some  facts  now 
— got  them  by  bullying  a  girl  and  by  choking  a  bar 
tender  in  an  alley.  Now  I  want  you  in  your  way 
to  put  me  in  the  way  of  getting  more  facts.  You 
make  the  women  talk  and  tell  you  and  then  you 
tell  me." 

When  McGregor  had  gone  Margaret  Ormsby  got 
up  from  her  desk  in  the  settlement  house  and  walked 
across  the  city  toward  her  father's  office.  She 
was  startled  and  frightened.  In  a  moment  and  by 
the  speech  and  manner  of  this  brutal  young  lawyer 
she  had  been  made  to  realise  that  she  was  but  a 
child  in  the  hands  of  the  forces  that  played  about 
her  in  the  First  Ward.  Her  self-possession  was 
shaken.  "If  they  are  children — these  women  of  the 
town — then  I  am  a  child,  a  child  swimming  with 
them  in  a  sea  of  hate  and  ugliness." 

A  new  thought  came  into  her  mind.  "But  he  is 
no  child — that  McGregor.  He  is  a  child  of  noth 
ing.  He  stands  on  a  rock  unshaken." 

She  tried  to  become  indignant  because  of  the 


MARCHING  MEN  193 

blunt  frankness  of  the  man's  speech.  "He  talked 
to  me  as  he  would  have  talked  to  a  woman  of  the 
streets,"  she  thought.  "He  was  not  afraid  to  as 
sume  that  at  bottom  we  are  alike,  just  playthings 
in  the  hands  of  the  man  who  dares." 

In  the  street  she  stopped  and  looked  about.  Her 
body  trembled  and  she  realised  that  the  forces  about 
her  had  become  living  things  ready  to  pounce  upon 
her.  "Anyway,  I  will  do  what  I  can.  I  will  help 
him.  I  will  have  to  do  that,"  she  whispered  to 
herself. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  clearing  of  Andrew  Brown  made  a  sensa 
tion  in  Chicago.  At  the  trial  McGregor  was  able 
to  introduce  one  of  those  breath-taking  dramatic 
climaxes  that  catch  the  attention  of  the  mob.  At 
the  tense  dramatic  moment  of  the  trial  a  frightened 
hush  fell  upon  the  court  room  and  that  evening  in 
their  houses  men  turned  instinctively  from  the 
reading  of  the  papers  to  look  at  their  beloved  sit 
ting  about  them.  A  chill  of  fear  ran  over  the 
bodies  of  women.  For  a  moment  Beaut  Mc 
Gregor  had  given  them  a  peep  under  the  crust  of 
civilisation  that  awoke  an  age-old  trembling  in  their 
hearts.  In  his  fervour  and  impatience  McGregor 
had  cried  out,  not  against  the  incidental  enemies 
of  Brown  but  against  all  modern  society  and  its 
formlessness.  To  the  listeners  it  seemed  that  he 
shook  mankind  by  the  throat  and  that  by  the  power 
and  purpose  fulness  of  his  own  solitary  figure  he 
revealed  the  pitiful  weakness  of  his  fellows. 

In  the  court  room  McGregor  had  sat,  grim  and 
silent,  letting  the  State  build  up  its  case.  In  his 
face  was  a  challenge.  His  eyes  looked  out  from 
beneath  swollen  eyelids.  For  weeks  he  had  been 

194 


MARCHING  MEN  195 

as  tireless  as  a  bloodhound  running  through  the 
First  Ward  and  building  his  case.  Policemen  had 
seen  him  emerge  from  alleyways  at  three  in  the 
morning,  the  soft  spoken  boss  hearing  of  his  activi 
ties  had  eagerly  questioned  Henry  Hunt,  a  bar 
tender  in  a  dive  on  Polk  Street  had  felt  the  grip 
of  a  hand  at  his  throat  and  a  trembling  girl  of 
the  town  had  knelt  before  him  in  a  little  dark  room 
begging  protection  from  his  wrath.  In  the  court 
room  he  sat  waiting  and  watching. 

When  the  special  counsel  for  the  State,  a  man  of 
great  name  in  the  courts,  had  finished  his  insistent 
persistent  cry  for  the  blood  of  the  silent  unemo 
tional  Brown,  McGregor  acted.  Springing  to  his 
feet  he  shouted  hoarsely  across  the  silent  court 
room  to  a  large  woman  sitting  among  the  witnesses. 
"They  have  tricked  you  Mary,"  he  roared.  "The 
tale  about  the  pardon  after  the  excitement  dies  is 
a  lie.  They're  stringing  you.  They're  going  to 
hang  Andy  Brown.  Get  up  there  and  tell  the  naked 
truth  or  his  blood  be  on  your  hands." 

A  furor  arose  in  the  crowded  court  room.  Law 
yers  sprang  to  their  feet,  objecting,  protesting. 
Above  the  noise  arose  a  hoarse  accusing  voice. 
"Keep  Polk  Street  Mary  and  every  woman  from 
her  place  in  here,"  he  shouted.  "They  know  who 
killed  your  man.  Put  them  back  there  on  the  stand. 
They'll  tell.  Look  at  them.  The  truth  is  coming 
out  of  them." 


196  MARCHING  MEN 

The  clamour  in  the  room  subsided.  The  silent 
red-haired  attorney,  the  joke  of  the  case,  had  scored. 
Walking  in  the  streets  at  night  the  words  of  Edith 
Carson  had  come  back  into  his  brain,  and  with  the 
help  of  Margaret  Ormsby  he  had  been  able  to  fol 
low  a  clue  given  by  her  suggestion. 

"Find  out  if  your  man  Brown  has  a  sweetheart." 

In  a  moment  he  saw  the  message  the  women  of 
the  underworld,  patrons  of  O'Toole's,  had  been  try 
ing  to  convey  to  him.  Polk  Street  Mary  was  the 
sweetheart  of  Andy  Brown.  Now  in  the  silent 
court  room  the  voice  of  a  woman  arose  broken  with 
sobs.  To  the  listening  crowd  in  the  packed  little 
room  came  the  story  of  the  tragedy  in  the  darkened 
house  before  which  stood  the  policeman  idly  swing 
ing  his  night  stick — the  story  of  a  girl  from  an 
Illinois  village  procured  and  sold  to  the  broker's 
son — of  the  desperate  struggle  in  the  little  room 
between  the  eager  lustful  man  and  the  frightened 
brave-hearted  girl — of  the  blow  with  the  chair  in 
the  hands  of  the  girl  that  brought  death  to  the  man 
— of  the  women  of  the  house  trembling  on  the  stairs 
and  the  body  hastily  pitched  into  the  passageway. 

"They  told  me  they  would  get  Andy  off  when 
this  blew  over,"  wailed  the  woman. 

McGregor  went  out  of  the  court  room  into  the 
street.  The  glow  of  victory  was  on  him  and  he 
strode  along  with  his  heart  beating  high.  His  way 


MARCHING  MEN  197 

led  over  a  bridge  into  the  North  Side  and  in  his 
wanderings  he  passed  the  apple  warehouse  where 
he  had  made  his  start  in  the  city  and  where  he  had 
fought  with  the  German.  When  night  came  he 
walked  in  North  Clark  Street  and  heard  the  news 
boys  shouting  of  his  victory.  Before  him  danced 
a  new  vision,  a  vision  of  himself  as  a  big  figure  in 
the  city.  Within  himself  he  felt  the  power  to  stand 
forth  among  men,  to  outwit  them  and  outfight  them, 
to  get  for  himself  power  and  place  in  the  world. 

The  miner's  son  was  half  drunk  with  the  new 
sense  of  achievement  that  swept  in  on  him.  Out 
of  Clark  Street  he  went  and  walked  east  along  a 
residence  street  to  the  lake.  By  the  lake  he  saw  a 
street  of  great  houses  surrounded  by  gardens  and 
the  thought  came  that  at  some  time  he  might  have 
such  a  house  of  his  own.  The  disorderly  clatter 
of  modern  life  seemed  very  far  away.  When  he 
came  to  the  lake  he  stood  in  the  darkness  thinking 
of  the  useless  rowdy  of  the  mining  town  suddenly 
become  a  great  lawyer  in  the  city  and  the  blood 
ran  swiftly  through  his  body.  "I  am  to  be  one 
of  the  victors,  one  of  the  few  who  emerge,"  he 
whispered  to  himself  and  with  a  jump  of  the  heart 
thought  also  of  Margaret  Ormsby  looking  at  him 
with  her  fine  questioning  eyes  as  he  stood  before  the 
men  in  the  court  room  and  by  the  force  of  his  per 
sonality  pushed  his  way  through  a  fog  of  lies  to 
victory  and  truth. 


BOOK  V 


CHAPTER  I 

MARGARET  ORMSBY  was  a  natural  product  of  her 
age  and  of  American  social  life  in  our  times.  As 
an  individual  she  was  lovely.  Although  her  father 
David  Ormsby  the  plough  king  had  come  up  to  his 
position  and  his  wealth  out  of  obscurity  and  poverty 
and  had  known  during  his  early  life  what  it  was 
to  stand  face  to  face  with  defeat,  he  had  made  it 
his  business  to  see  that  his  daughter  had  no  such 
experience.  The  girl  had  been  sent  to  Vassar,  she 
had  been  taught  to  catch  the  fine  distinction  between 
clothes  that  are  quietly  and  beautifully  expensive 
and  clothes  that  merely  look  expensive,  she  knew 
how  to  enter  a  room  and  how  to  leave  a  room  and 
had  also  a  strong  well  trained  body  and  an  active 
mind.  Added  to  these  things  she  had,  without  the 
least  knowledge  of  life,  a  vigorous  and  rather  high 
handed  confidence  in  her  ability  to  meet  life. 

During  the  years  spent  in  the  eastern  college  Mar 
garet  had  made  up  her  mind  that  whatever  hap 
pened  she  was  not  going  to  let  her  life  be  dull  or 

199 


200  MARCHING  MEN 

uninteresting.  Once  when  a  girl  friend  from  Chi 
cago  came  to  the  college  to  visit  her  the  two  went 
for  a  day  out  of  doors  and  sat  down  upon  a  hill 
side  to  talk  things  over.  "We  women  have  been 
fools,"  Margaret  had  declared.  "If  Father  and 
Mother  think  that  I  am  going  to  come  home  and 
marry  some  stick  of  a  man  they  are  mistaken.  I 
have  learned  to  smoke  cigarettes  and  have  had  my 
share  of  a  bottle  of  wine.  That  may  not  mean  any 
thing  to  you.  I  do  not  think  it  amounts  to  much 
either  but  it  expresses  something.  It  fairly  makes 
me  ill  when  I  think  of  how  men  have  always  pat 
ronised  women.  They  want  to  keep  evil  things 
away  from  us — Bah !  I  am  sick  of  that  idea  and  a 
lot  of  the  other  girls  here  feel  the  same  way.  What 
right  have  they?  I  suppose  some  day  some  little 
whiffit  of  a  business  man  will  set  himself  up  to  take 
care  of  me.  He  had  better  not.  I  tell  you  there  is 
a  new  kind  of  women  growing  up  and  I  am  going 
to  be  one  of  them.  I  am  going  to  adventure,  to 
taste  life  strongly  and  deeply.  Father  and  Mother 
might  as  well  make  up  their  minds  to  that." 

The  excited  girl  had  walked  up  and  down  before 
her  companion,  a  mild  looking  young  woman  with 
blue  eyes,  and  had  raised  her  hands  above  her  head 
as  though  to  strike  a  blow.  Her  body  was  like  the 
body  of  a  fine  young  animal  standing  alert  to  meet 
an  enemy  and  her  eyes  reflected  the  intoxication 
of  her  mood.  "I  want  all  of  life,"  she  cried;  "I 


MARCHING  MEN  201 

want  the  lust  and  the  strength  and  the  evil  of  it. 
I  want  to  be  one  of  the  new  women,  the  saviours  of 
our  sex." 

Between  David  Ormsby  and  his  daughter  there 
was  an  unusual  bond.  Six  foot  three,  blue  eyed, 
broad  shouldered,  his  presence  had  a  strength  and 
dignity  which  marked  him  out  among  men  and  the 
daughter  sensed  his  strength.  She  was  right  in 
that.  In  his  way  the  man  was  inspired.  Under 
his  eye  the  trivialities  of  plough-making  had  become 
the  details  of  a  fine  art.  In  the  factory  he  never  lost 
the  air  of  command  which  inspires  confidence. 
Foremen  running  into  the  office  filled  with  excite 
ment  because  of  a  break  in  the  machinery  or  an 
accident  to  a  workman  returned  to  do  his  bidding 
quietly  and  efficiently.  Salesmen  going  from  village 
to  village  to  sell  ploughs  became  under  his  influ 
ence  filled  with  the  zeal  of  missionaries  carrying 
the  gospel  to  the  unenlightened.  Stockholders  of 
the  plough  company  rushing  to  him  with  rumours  of 
coming  business  disaster  stayed  to  write  checks 
for  new  assessments  on  their  stock.  He  was  a  man 
who  gave  men  back  their  faith  in  business  and  their 
faith  in  men. 

To  David  plough-making  was  an  end  in  life.  Like 
other  men  of  his  type  he  had  other  interests  but 
they  were  secondary.  In  secret  he  thought  of  him 
self  as  capable  of  a  broader  culture  than  most  of 
his  daily  associates  and  without  letting  it  interfere 


202  MARCHING  MEN 

with  his  efficiency  tried  to  keep  in  touch  with  the 
thoughts  and  movements  of  the  world  by  reading. 
After  the  longest  and  hardest  day  in  the  office  he 
sometimes  spent  half  the  night  over  a  book  in  his 
room. 

As  Margaret  Ormsby  grew  into  womanhood  she 
was  a  constant  source  of  anxiety  to  her  father. 
To  him  it  seemed  that  she  had  passed  from  an 
awkward  and  rather  jolly  girlhood  into  a  peculiarly 
determined  new  kind  of  womanhood  over  night. 
Her  adventurous  spirit  worried  him.  One  day  he 
had  sat  in  his  office  reading  a  letter  announcing  her 
homecoming.  The  letter  seemed  no  more  than  a 
characteristic  outburst  from  an  impulsive  girl  who 
had  but  yesterday  fallen  asleep  at  evening  in  his 
arms.  It  confused  him  to  think  that  an  honest 
ploughmaker  should  have  a  letter  from  his  little 
girl  talking  of  the  kind  of  living  that  he  believed 
could  only  lead  a  woman  to  destruction. 

And  then  the  next  day  there  sat  beside  him  at 
his  table  a  new  and  commanding  figure  demanding 
his  attention.  David  got  up  from  the  table  and 
hurried  away  to  his  room.  He  wanted  to  readjust 
his  thoughts.  On  his  desk  was  a  photograph 
brought  home  by  the  daughter  from  school.  He 
had  the  common  experience  of  being  told  by  the 
photograph  what  he  had  been  trying  to  grasp.  In 
stead  of  a  wife  and  child  there  were  two  women  in 
the  house  with  him. 


MARCHING  MEN  203 

Margaret  had  come  out  of  college  a  thing  of 
beauty  in  face  and  figure.  Her  tall  straight  well- 
trained  body,  her  coal-black  hair,  her  soft  brown 
eyes,  the  air  she  had  of  being  prepared  for  life's 
challenge  caught  and  held  the  attention  of  men. 
There  was  in  the  girl  something  of  her  father's 
bigness  and  not  a  little  of  the  secret  blind  desires 
of  her  mother.  To  an  attentive  household  on  the 
night  of  her  arrival  she  announced  her  intention  of 
living  her  life  fully  and  vividly.  "I  am  going  to 
know  things  I  can  not  get  from  books,"  she  said. 
"I  am  going  to  touch  life  at  many  corners,  getting 
the  taste  of  things  in  my  mouth.  You  thought  me 
a  child  when  I  wrote  home  saying  that  I  wouldn't 
be  cooped  up  in  the  house  and  married  to  a  tenor 
in  the  church  choir  or  to  an  empty-headed  young 
business  man  but  now  you  are  going  to  see.  I  am 
going  to  pay  the  price  if  necessary,  but  I  am  going 
to  live." 

In  Chicago  Margaret  set  about  the  business  of 
living  as  though  nothing  were  needed  but  strength 
and  energy.  In  a  characteristic  American  way  she 
tried  to  hustle  life.  When  the  men  in  her  own 
set  looked  confused  and  shocked  by  the  opinions 
she  expressed  she  got  out  of  her  set  and  made  the 
common  mistake  of  supposing  that  those  who  do 
not  work  and  who  talk  rather  glibly  of  art  and 
of  freedom  are  by  that  token  free  men  and  artists. 

Still  she  loved  and  respected  her  father.     The 


204  MARCHING  MEN 

strength  in  him  made  an  appeal  to  the  native  strong 
thing  in  her.  To  a  young  socialist  writer  who  lived 
in  the  settlement  house  where  she  presently  went 
to  live  and  who  sought  her  out  to  sit  by  her  desk 
berating  men  of  wealth  and  position  she  showed 
the  quality  of  her  ideals  by  pointing  to  David 
Ormsby.  "My  father,  the  leader  of  an  industrial 
trust,  is  a  better  man  than  all  of  the  noisy  reform 
ers  that  ever  lived,"  she  declared.  "He  makes 
ploughs  anyway — makes  them  well — millions  of 
them.  He  does  not  spend  his  time  talking  and  run 
ning  his  fingers  through  his  hair.  He  works  and 
his  work  has  lightened  the  labours  of  millions 
while  the  talkers  sit  thinking  noisy  thoughts  and 
getting  round-shouldered." 

In  truth  Margaret  Ormsby  was  puzzled.  Had 
she  been  allowed  by  a  common  fellowship  in  living 
to  be  a  real  sister  to  all  other  women  and  to  know 
their  common  heritage  of  defeat,  had  she  like  her 
father  when  he  was  a  boy  but  known  what  it  was  to 
walk  utterly  broken  and  beaten  in  the  face  of  men 
and  then  to  rise  again  and  again  to  battle  with  life 
she  would  have  been  splendid. 

She  did  not  know.  To  her  mind  any  kind  of  de 
feat  had  in  it  a  touch  of  something  like  immorality. 
When  she  saw  all  about  her  only  a  vast  mob  of  de 
feated  and  confused  human  beings  trying  to  make 
headway  in  the  midst  of  a  confused  social  organi 
sation  she  was  beside  herself  with  impatience. 


MARCHING  MEN  205 

The  distraught  girl  turned  to  her  father  and  tried 
to  get  hold  of  the  keynote  of  his  life;  "I  want  you 
to  tell  me  things,"  she  said,  but  the  father  not  un 
derstanding  only  shook  his  head.  It  did  not  occur 
to  him  to  talk  to  her  as  to  a  fine  man  friend  and  a 
kind  of  bantering  half  serious  companionship 
sprang  up  between  them.  The  ploughmaker  was 
happy  in  the  thought  that  the  jolly  girl  he  had 
known  before  his  daughter  went  to  college  had  come 
back  to  live  with  him. 

After  Margaret  went  to  the  settlement  house  she 
lunched  with  her  father  almost  every  day.  The 
hour  together  in  the  midst  of  the  din  that  filled  their 
lives  became  for  them  both  a  treasured  privilege. 
Day  after  day  they  sat  for  an  hour  in  a  fashionable 
down-town  eating  place  renewing  and  strengthening 
their  comradeship,  laughing  and  talking  amid  the 
crowds,  delightful  in  their  intimacy.  With  each 
other  they  playfully  took  on  the  air  of  the  two  men 
of  affairs,  each  in  turn  treating  the  work  of  the 
other  as  something  to  be  passed  over  lightly.  Se 
cretly  neither  believed  as  he  talked. 

In  her  effort  to  get  hold  of  and  move  the  sordid 
human  wrecks  floating  in  and  out  of  the  door  of 
the  settlement  house  Margaret  thought  of  her  father 
at  his  desk  directing  the  making  of  ploughs.  "It  is 
clean  and  important  work,"  she  thought.  "He  is  a 
big  and  effective  man." 

At  his  desk  in  the  office  of  the  plough  trust  David 


206  MARCHING  MEN 

thought  of  his  daughter  in  the  settlement  house  at 
the  edge  of  the  First  Ward.  "She  is  a  white  shin 
ing  thing  amid  dirt  and  ugliness,"  he  thought. 
"Her  whole  life  is  like  the  life  of  her  mother  dur 
ing  the  hours  when  she  once  lay  bravely  facing 
death  for  the  sake  of  a  new  life." 

On  the  day  of  her  meeting  with  McGregor,  father 
and  daughter  sat  as  usual  in  the  restaurant.  Men 
and  women  passed  up  and  down  the  long  carpeted 
aisles  and  looked  at  them  admiringly.  A  waiter 
stood  at  Ormsby's  shoulder  anxious  for  the  gen 
erous  tip.  Into  the  air  that  hung  over  them,  the 
little  secret  atmosphere  of  comradeship  they  cher 
ished  so  carefully,  was  thrust  the  sense  of  a  new 
personality.  Floating  in  Margaret's  mind  beside 
the  quiet  noble  face  of  her  father,  with  its  stamp 
of  ability  and  kindliness,  was  another  face — the  face 
of  the  man  who  had  talked  to  her  in  the  settlement 
house,  not  as  Margaret  Ormsby  daughter  of  David 
Ormsby  of  the  plough  trust  but  as  a  woman  who 
could  serve  his  ends  and  whom  he  meant  should 
serve.  The  vision  in  her  mind  haunted  her  and 
she  listened  indifferently  to  the  talk  of  her  father. 
She  felt  that  the  stern  face  of  the  young  lawyer 
with  its  strong  mouth  and  its  air  of  command  was 
as  something  impending  and  tried  to  get  back  the 
feeling  of  dislike  she  had  felt  when  first  he  thrust 
himself  in  at  the  settlement  house  door.  She  suc 
ceeded  only  in  recalling  certain  firm  lines  of  purpose 


MARCHING  MEN  207 

that  offset  and  tempered  the  brutality  of  his  face. 

Sitting  there  in  the  restaurant  opposite  her  father, 
where  day  after  day  they  had  tried  so  hard  to  build 
a  real  partnership  in  existence,  Margaret  suddenly 
burst  into  tears. 

"I  have  met  a  man  who  has  compelled  me  to  do 
what  I  did  not  want  to  do,"  she  explained  to  the 
astonished  man  and  then  smiled  at  him  through  the 
tears  that  glistened  in  her  eyes. 


CHAPTER  II 

IN  Chicago  the  Ormsbys  lived  in  a  large  stone 
house  in  Drexel  Boulevard.  The  house  had  a  his 
tory.  It  was  owned  by  a  banker  who' was  a  large 
stockholder  and  one  of  the  directors  of  the  plough 
trust.  Like  all  men  who  knew  him  well  the  banker 
admired  and  respected  the  ability  and  integrity  of 
David  Ormsby.  When  the  ploughmaker  came  to 
the  city  from  a  town  in  Wisconsin  to  be  the  master 
of  the  plough  trust  he  offered  him  the  house  to  use. 

The  house  had  come  to  the  banker  from  his 
father,  a  grim  determined  old  money-making  mer 
chant  of  a  past  generation  who  had  died  hated  by 
half  .Chicago  after  toiling  sixteen  hours  daily  for 
sixty  years.  In  his  old  age  the  merchant  had  built 
the  house  to  express  the  power  wealth  had  given 
him.  It  had  floors  and  woodwork  cunningly 
wrought  of  expensive  woods  by  workmen  sent  to 
Chicago  by  a  firm  in  Brussels.  In  the  long  draw 
ing  room  at  the  front  of  the  house  hung  a  chan 
delier  that  had  cost  the  merchant  ten  thousand 
dollars.  The  stairway  leading  to  the  floor  above 
was  from  the  palace  of  a  prince  in  Venice  and  had 

208 


MARCHING  MEN  209 

been  bought  for  the  merchant  and  brought  over  seas 
to  the  house  in  Chicago. 

The  banker  who  inherited  the  house  did  not  want 
to  live  in  it.  Even  before  the  death  of  his  father 
and  after  his  own  unsuccessful  marriage  he  lived 
at  a  down  town  club.  In  his  old  age  the  merchant, 
retired  from  business,  lived  in  the  house  with  an 
other  old  man,  an  inventor.  He  could  not  rest  al 
though  he  had  given  up  business  with  that  end  in 
view.  Digging  a  trench  in  the  lawn  at  the  back  of 
the  house  he  with  his  friend  spent  his  days 
trying  to  reduce  the  refuse  of  one  of  his  fac 
tories  to  something  having  commercial  value.  Fires 
burned  in  the  trench  and  at  night  the  grim  old  man, 
hands  covered  with  tar,  sat  in  the  house  under 
the  chandelier.  After  the  death  of  the  merchant  the 
house  stood  empty,  staring  at  passers-by  in  the 
street,  its  walks  and  paths  overgrown  with  weeds 
and  rank  grass. 

David  Ormsby  fitted  into  his  house.  Walking 
through  the  long  halls  or  sitting  smoking  his  cigar 
in  an  easy  chair  on  the  wide  lawn  he  looked  ar 
rayed  and  environed.  The  house  became  a  part  of 
him  like  a  well-made  and  intelligently  worn  suit  of 
clothes.  Into  the  drawing  room  under  the  ten  thou 
sand  dollar  chandelier  he  moved  a  billiard  table  and 
the  click  of  ivory  balls  banished  the  churchliness  of 
the  place. 

Up   and   down   the   stairway   moved    American 


210  MARCHING  MEN 

girls,  friends  of  Margaret,  their  skirts  rustling  and 
their  voices  running  through  the  huge  rooms.  In 
the  evening  after  dinner  David  played  billiards. 
The  careful  calculation  of  the  angles  and  the  Eng 
lish  interested  him.  Playing  in  the  evening  with 
Margaret  or  with  a  man  friend  the  fatigue  of  the 
day  passed  and  his  honest  voice  and  reverberating 
laugh  brought  a  smile  to  the  lips  of  people  passing 
in  the  street.  In  the  evening  David  brought  his 
friends  to  sit  in  talk  with  him  on  the  wide  verandas. 
At  times  he  went  alone  to  his  room  at  the  top  of 
the  house  and  buried  himself  in  books.  On  Satur 
day  evenings  he  had  a  debauch  and  with  a  group 
of  friends  from  town  sat  at  a  card  table  in  the  long 
parlour  playing  poker  and  drinking  highballs. 

Laura  Ormsby,  Margaret's  mother,  had  never 
seemed  a  real  part  of  the  life  about  her.  Even  as 
a  child  the  daughter  had  thought  her  hopelessly  ro 
mantic.  Life  had  treated  her  too  well  and  from 
every  one  about  her  she  expected  qualities  and  re 
actions  which  in  her  own  person  she  would  not  have 
tried  to  achieve. 

David  had  already  begun  to  rise  when  he  mar 
ried  her,  the  slender  brown-haired  daughter  of  a 
village  shoemaker,  and  even  in  those  days  the  little 
plough  company  with  its  ownership  scattered  among 
the  merchants  and  farmers  of  the  vicinity  had 
started  under  his  hand  to  make  progress  in  the 
state.  People  already  spoke  of  its  master  as  a  com- 


MARCHING  MEN  211 

ing  man  and  of  Laura  as  the  wife  of  a  coming 
man. 

To  Laura  this  was  in  some  way  unsatisfactory. 
Sitting  at  home  and  doing  nothing  she  had  still  a 
passionate  wish  to  be  known  as  a  character,  an 
individual,  a  woman  of  action.  On  the  street  as 
she  walked  beside  her  husband,  she  beamed  upon 
people  but  when  the  same  people  spoke,  calling  them 
a  handsome  couple,  a  flush  rose  to  her  cheeks  and  a 
flash  of  indignation  ran  through  her  brain. 

Laura  Ormsby  lay  awake  in  her  bed  at  night 
thinking  of  her  life.  She  had  a  world  of  fancies 
in  which  she  at  such  times  lived.  In  her  dream 
world  a  thousand  stirring  adventures  came  to  her. 
She  imagined  a  letter  received  through  the  mail, 
telling  of  an  intrigue  in  which  David's  name  was 
coupled  with  that  of  another  woman  and  lay  abed 
quietly  hugging  the  thought.  She  looked  at  the 
face  of  the  sleeping  David  tenderly.  "Poor  hard- 
pressed  boy,"  she  muttered.  "I  shall  be  resigned 
and  cheerful  and  lead  him  gently  back  to  his  old 
place  in  my  heart." 

In  the  morning  after  a  night  spent  in  this  dream 
world  Laura  looked  at  David,  so  cool  and  efficient, 
and  was  irritated  by  his  efficiency.  When  he  play 
fully  dropped  his  hand  upon  her  shoulder  she  drew 
away  and  sitting  opposite  him  at  breakfast  watched 
him  reading  the  morning  paper  all  unconscious  of 
the  rebel  thoughts  in  her  mind. 


212  MARCHING  MEN 

Once  after  she  had  moved  to  Chicago  and  after 
Margaret's  return  from  college  Laura  had  the  faint 
suggestion  of  an  adventure.  Although  it  turned 
out  tamely  it  lingered  in  her  mind  and  in  some  way 
sweetened  her  thoughts. 

She  was  alone  on  a  sleeping  car  coming  from 
New  York.  A  young  man  sat  in  a  seat  opposite  her 
and  the  two  fell  into  talk.  As  she  talked  Laura 
imagined  herself  eloping  with  the  young  man  and 
under  her  lashes  looked  sharply  at  his  weak  and 
pleasant  face.  She  kept  the  talk  alive  as  others  in 
the  car  crawled  away  for  the  night  behind  the  green 
swaying  curtains. 

With  the  young  man  Laura  discussed  ideas  she 
had  got  from  reading  Ibsen  and  Shaw.  She  grew 
bold  and  daring  in  the  advancing  of  opinions  and 
tried  to  stir  the  young  man  to  some  overt  speech  or 
action  that  might  arouse  her  indignation. 

The  young  man  did  not  understand  the  middle- 
aged  woman  who  sat  beside  him  and  talked  so 
boldly.  He  knew  of  but  one  prominent  man  named 
Shaw  and  that  man  had  been  governor  of  Iowa  and 
later  a  member  of  the  cabinet  of  President  Mc- 
Kinley.  It  startled  him  to  think  that  a  prominent 
member  of  the  Republican  party  should  have  such 
thoughts  or  express  such  opinions.  He  talked  of 
fishing  in  Canada  and  of  a  comic  opera  he  had  seen 
in  New  York  and  at  eleven  o'clock  yawned  and 
disappeared  behind  the  green  curtains.  As  the 


MARCHING  MEN  213 

young  man  lay  in  his  berth  he  muttered  to  himself, 
"Now  what  did  that  woman  want?"  A  thought 
came  into  his  mind  and  he  reached  up  to  where  his 
trousers  swung  in  a  little  hammock  above  the  win 
dow  and  looked  to  see  that  his  watch  and  pocket- 
book  were  still  there. 

At  home  Laura  Ormsby  nursed  the  thought  of 
the  talk  with  the  strange  man  on  the  train.  In  her 
mind  he  became  something  romantic  and  daring,  a 
streak  of  light  across  what  she  was  pleased  to  think 
of  as  her  sombre  life. 

Sitting  at  dinner  she  talked  of  him  describing 
his  charms.  "He  had  a  wonderful  mind  and  we 
sat  late  into  the  night  talking,"  she  said,  watching 
the  face  of  David. 

When  she  had  spoken  Margaret  looked  up  and 
said  laughingly,  "Have  a  heart  Dad.  Here  is  ro 
mance.  Do  not  be  blind  to  it.  Mother  is  trying 
to  scare  you  about  an  alleged  love  affair." 


CHAPTER  III 

ONE  evening  three  weeks  after  the  great  murder 
trial  McGregor  took  a  long  walk  in  the  streets  of 
Chicago  and  tried  to  plan  out  his  life.  He  was 
troubled  and  disconcerted  by  the  event  that  had 
crowded  in  upon  the  heels  of  his  dramatic  success 
in  the  court  room  and  more  than  troubled  by  the 
fact  that  his  mind  constantly  played  with  the  dream 
of  having  Margaret  Ormsby  as  his  wife.  In  the 
city  he  had  become  a  power  and  instead  of  the 
names  and  the  pictures  of  criminals  and  keepers  of 
disorderly  houses  his  name  and  his  picture  now 
appeared  on  the  front  pages  of  newspapers.  An 
drew  Leffingwell,  the  political  representative  in  Chi 
cago  of  a  rich  and  successful  publisher  of  sensa 
tional  newspapers,  had  visited  him  in  his  office  and 
had  proposed  to  make  him  a  political  figure  in  the 
city.  Finley  a  noted  criminal  lawyer  had  offered 
him  a  partnership.  The  lawyer,  a  small  smiling 
man  with  white  teeth,  had  not  asked  McGregor  for 
an  immediate  decision.  In  a  way  he  had  taken  the 
decision  for  granted.  Smiling  genially  and  rolling 
a  cigar  across  McGregor's  desk  he  had  spent  an 
hour  telling  stories  of  famous  court  room  triumphs. 

214 


MARCHING  MEN  215 

"One  such  triumph  is  enough  to  make  a  man,"  he 
declared.  "You  have  no  idea  how  far  such  a  suc 
cess  will  carry  you.  The  word  of  it  keeps  running 
through  men's  minds.  A  tradition  is  built  up.  The 
remembrance  of  it  acts  upon  the  minds  of  jurors. 
Cases  are  won  for  you  by  the  mere  connection  of 
your  name  with  the  case." 

McGregor  walked  slowly  and  heavily  through 
the  streets  without  seeing  the  people.  In  Wabash 
Avenue  near  Twenty-third  Street  he  stopped  in  a 
saloon  and  drank  beer.  The  saloon  was  in  a  room 
below  the  level  of  the  sidewalk  and  the  floor  was 
covered  with  sawdust.  Two  half  drunken  labour 
ers  stood  by  the  bar  quarrelling.  One  of  the 
labourers  who  was  a  socialist  continually  cursed 
the  army  and  his  words  started  McGregor  to 
thinking  of  the  dream  he  had  so  long  held  and 
that  now  seemed  fading.  "I  was  in  the  army  and 
I  know  what  I  am  talking  about,"  declared  the 
socialist.  "There  is  nothing  national  about  the 
army.  It  is  a  privately  owned  thing.  Here  it  is 
secretly  owned  by  the  capitalists  and  in  Europe  by 
the  aristocracy.  Don't  tell  me — I  know.  The  army 
is  made  up  of  bums.  If  I'm  a  bum  I  became  one 
then.  You  will  see  fast  enough  what  fellows  are  in 
the  army  if  the  country  is  ever  caught  and  drawn 
into  a  great  war." 

Becoming  excited  the  socialist  raised  his  voice 
and  pounded  on  the  bar.  "Hell,  we  don't  know  our- 


2i6  MARCHING  MEN 

selves  at  all,"  he  cried.  "We  never  have  been  tested. 
We  call  ourselves  a  great  nation  because  we  are 
rich.  We  are  like  a  fat  boy  who  has  had  too  much 
pie.  Yes  sir — that's  what  we  are  here  in  America 
and  as  far  as  our  army  goes  it  is  a  fat  boy's  play 
thing.  Keep  away  from  it." 

McGregor  sat  in  the  corner  of  the  saloon  and 
looked  about.  Men  came  in  and  went  out  at  the 
door.  A  child  carried  a  pail  down  the  short  flight 
of  steps  from  the  street  and  ran  across  the  sawdust 
floor.  Her  voice,  thin  and  sharp,  pierced  through 
the  babble  of  men's  voices.  "Ten  cents'  worth — 
give  me  plenty,"  she  pleaded,  raising  the  pail  above 
her  head  and  putting  it  on  the  bar. 

The  confident  smiling  face  of  Finley  the  lawyer 
came  back  into  McGregor's  mind.  Like  David 
Ormsby  the  successful  maker  of  ploughs  the  lawyer 
looked  upon  men  as  pawns  in  a  great  game  and  like 
the  ploughmaker  his  intentions  were  honourable  and 
his  purpose  clear.  He  was  intent  upon  making 
much  of  his  life,  being  successful.  If  he  played  the 
game  on  the  side  of  the  criminal  that  was  but  a 
chance.  Things  had  fallen  out  so.  In  his  mind  was 
something  else — the  expression  of  his  own  purpose. 

McGregor  rose  and  went  out  of  the  saloon.  In 
the  street  men  stood  about  in  groups.  At  Thirty- 
ninth  Street  a  crowd  of  youths  scuffling  on  the  side 
walk  pushed  against  the  tall  muttering  man  who 
passed  with  his  hat  in  his  hand.  He  began  to  feel 


MARCHING  MEN  217 

that  he  was  in  the  midst  of  something  too  vast  to 
be  moved  by  the  efforts  of  any  one  man.  The 
pitiful  insignificance  of  the  individual  was  appa 
rent.  As  in  a  long  procession  the  figures  of  the  in 
dividuals  who  had  tried  to  rise  out  of  the  ruck  of 
American  life  passed  before  him.  With  a  shudder 
he  realised  that  for  the  most  part  the  men  whose 
names  filled  the  pages  of  American  history  meant 
nothing.  The  children  who  read  of  their  deeds 
were  unmoved.  Perhaps  they  had  only  increased 
the  disorder.  Like  the  men  passing  in  the  street 
they  went  across  the  face  of  things  and  disappeared 
into  the  darkness. 

"Perhaps  Finley  and  Ormsby  are  right,"  he  whis 
pered.  "They  get  what  they  can,  they  have  the  good 
sense  to  know  that  life  runs  quickly  like  a  flying 
bird  passing  an  open  window.  They  know  that  if  a 
man  thinks  of  anything  else  he  is  likely  to  become 
another  sentimentalist  and  spend  his  life  being  hyp 
notised  by  the  wagging  of  his  own  jaw." 

In  his  wanderings  McGregor  came  to  an  out-of- 
door  restaurant  and  garden  far  out  on  the  south 
side.  The  garden  had  been  built  for  the  amusement 
of  the  rich  and  successful.  Upon  a  little  platform  a 
band  played.  Although  the  garden  was  walled 
about  it  was  open  to  the  sky  and  above  the  laugh 
ing  people  seated  at  the  tables  shone  the  stars. 

McGregor  sat  alone  at  a  little  table  on  a  balcony 


218  MARCHING  MEN 

beneath  a  shaded  light.  Below  him  along  a  terrace 
were  other  tables  occupied  by  men  and  women.  On 
a  platform  in  the  centre  of  the  garden  dancers  ap 
peared. 

McGregor  who  had  ordered  a  dinner  left  it  un 
touched.  A  tall  graceful  girl,  strongly  suggestive 
of  Margaret  Ormsby,  danced  upon  the  platform. 
With  infinite  grace  her  body  gave  expression  to  the 
movements  of  the  dance  and  like  a  thing  blown  by 
the  wind  she  moved  here  and  there  in  the  arms 
of  her  partner,  a  slender  youth  with  long  black 
hair.  In  the  figure  of  the  dancing  woman  there 
was  expressed  much  of  the  idealism  man  has  sought 
to  materialise  in  women  and  McGregor  was  thrilled 
by  it.  A  sensualism  so  delicate  that  it  did  not  ap 
pear  to  be  sensualism  began  to  invade  him.  With 
a  new  hunger  he  looked  forward  to  the  time  when 
he  would  again  see  Margaret. 

Upon  the  platform  in  the  garden  appeared  other 
dancers.  The  lights  at  the  tables  were  turned  low. 
From  the  darkness  laughter  arose.  McGregor 
stared  about.  The  people  seated  at  the  tables  on  the 
terrace  caught  and  held  his  attention  and  he  began 
looking  sharply  at  the  faces  of  the  men.  How  cun 
ning  they  were,  these  men  who  had  been  successful 
in  life.  Were  they  not  after  all  the  wise  men  ?  Be 
hind  the  flesh  that  had  grown  so  thick  upon  their 
bones  what  cunning  eyes.  There  was  a  game  of 
life  and  they  had  played  it.  The  garden  was  a 


MARCHING  MEN  219 

part  of  the  game.  It  was  beautiful  and  did  not  all 
that  was  beautiful  in  the  world  end  by  serving 
them?  The  arts  of  men,  the  thoughts  of  men,  the 
impulses  toward  loveliness  that  came  into  the  minds 
of  men  and  women,  did  not  all  these  things  work 
solely  to  lighten  the  hours  of  the  successful?  The 
eyes  of  the  men  at  the  tables  as  they  looked  at  the 
women  who  danced  were  not  too  greedy.  They 
were  filled  with  assurance.  Was  it  not  for  them 
that  the  dancers  turned  here  and  there  revealing 
their  grace?  If  life  was  a  struggle  had  they  not 
been  successful  in  the  struggle? 

McGregor  arose  from  the  table  and  left  his  food 
untouched.  Near  the  entrance  to  the  gardens  he 
stopped  and  leaning  against  a  pillar  looked  again 
at  the  scene  before  him.  Upon  the  platform  ap 
peared  a  whole  troupe  of  women-dancers.  They 
were  dressed  in  many-coloured  garments  and  danced 
a  folk  dance.  As  McGregor  watched  a  light  began 
to  creep  back  into  his  eyes.  The  women  who  now 
danced  were  unlike  her  who  had  reminded  him  of 
Margaret  Ormsby.  They  were  short  of  stature  and 
there  was  something  rugged  in  their  faces.  Back 
and  forth  across  the  platform  they  moved  in  masses. 
By  their  dancing  they  were  striving  to  convey  a 
message.  A  thought  came  to  McGregor.  "It  is 
the  dance  of  labour,"  he  muttered.  "Here  in  this 
garden  it  is  corrupted  but  the  note  of  labour  is  not. 


220  MARCHING  MEN 

lost.  There  is  a  hint  of  it  left  in  these  figures  who 
toil  even  as  they  dance." 

McGregor  moved  away  from  the  shadows  of  the 
pillar  and  stood,  hat  in  hand,  beneath  the  garden 
lights  waiting  as  though  for  a  call  out  of  the  ranks 
of  the  dancers.  How  furiously  they  worked.  How 
the  bodies  twisted  and  squirmed.  Out  of  sym 
pathy  with  their  efforts  sweat  appeared  on  the  face 
of  the  man  who  stood  watching.  "What  a  storm 
must  be  going  on  just  below  the  surface  of  labour," 
he  muttered.  "Everywhere  dumb  brutalised  men 
and  women  must  be  waiting  for  something,  not 
knowing  what  they  want.  I  will  stick  to  my  pur 
pose  but  I  will  not  give  up  Margaret,"  he  said 
aloud,  turning  and  half  running  out  of  the  garden 
and  into  the  street. 

In  his  sleep  that  night  McGregor  dreamed  of  a 
new  world,  a  world  of  soft  phrases  and  gentle 
hands  that  stilled  the  rising  brute  in  man.  It  was 
a  world-old  dream,  the  dream  out  of  which  such 
women  as  Margaret  Ormsby  have  been  created. 
The  long  slender  hands  he  had  seen  lying  on  the 
desk  in  the  settlement  house  now  touched  his  hands. 
Uneasily  he  rolled  about  in  bed  and  desire  came  to 
him  so  that  he  awakened.  On  the  Boulevard  people 
still  passed  up  and  down.  McGregor  arose  and 
stood  in  the  darkness  by  the  window  of  his  room 
watching.  A  theatre  had  just  spat  forth  its  por 
tion  of  richly  dressed  men  and  women  and  when 


MARCHING  MEN  221 

he  had  opened  the  window  the  voices  of  the  women 
came  clear  and  sharp  to  his  ears. 

The  distracted  man  stared  into  the  darkness  and 
his  blue  eyes  were  troubled.  The  vision  of  the  dis 
ordered  and  disorganised  band  of  miners  marching 
silently  in  the  wake  of  his  mother's  funeral  into 
whose  lives  he  by  some  supreme  effort  was  to  bring 
order  was  disturbed  and  shattered  by  the  more 
definite  and  lovely  vision  that  had  come  to  him. 


CHAPTER  IV 

DURING  the  days  since  she  had  seen  McGregor 
Margaret  had  thought  of  him  almost  constantly. 
She  weighed  and  balanced  her  own  inclinations  and 
decided  that  if  the  opportunity  came  she  would 
marry  the  man  whose  force  and  courage  had  so 
appealed  to  her.  She  was  half  disappointed  that  the 
opposition  she  had  seen  in  her  father's  face  when 
she  had  told  him  of  McGregor  and  had  betrayed 
herself  by  her  tears  did  not  become  more  active. 
She  wanted  to  fight,  to  defend  the  man  she  had 
secretly  chosen.  When  nothing  was  said  of  the 
matter  she  went  to  her  mother  and  tried  to  explain. 
"We  will  have  him  here,"  the  mother  said  quickly. 
"I  am  giving  a  reception  next  week.  I  will  make 
him  the  chief  figure.  Let  me  have  his  name  and 
address  and  I  will  attend  to  the  matter." 

Laura  arose  and  went  into  the  house.  A  shrewd 
gleam  came  into  her  eyes.  "He  will  act  like  a  fool 
before  our  people,"  she  told  herself.  "He  is  a  brute 
and  will  be  made  to  look  like  a  brute."  She  could 
not  restrain  her  impatience  and  sought  out  David. 
"He  is  a  man  to  fear,"  she  said ;  "he  would  stop  at 

222 


MARCHING  MEN  223 

nothing.  You  must  think  of  some  way  to  put  an 
end  to  Margaret's  interest  in  him.  Do  you  know 
of  a  better  plan  than  to  have  him  here  where  he 
will  look  the  fool?" 

David  took  the  cigar  from  his  lips.  He  felt  an 
noyed  and  irritated  that  an  affair  concerning  Mar 
garet  had  been  brought  forward  for  discussion.  In 
his  heart  he  also  feared  McGregor.  "Let  it  alone," 
he  said  sharply.  "She  is  a  woman  grown  and  has 
more  judgment  and  good  sense  than  any  other 
woman  I  know."  He  got  up  and  threw  the  cigar 
over  the  veranda  into  the  grass.  "Women  are  not 
understandable,"  he  half  shouted.  "They  do  in 
explicable  things,  have  inexplicable  fancies.  Why 
do  they  not  go  forward  along  straight  lines  like  a 
sane  man  ?  I  years  ago  gave  up  understanding  you 
and  now  I  am  being  compelled  to  give  up  under 
standing  Margaret." 

•  *«•••• 

At  Mrs.  Ormsby's  reception  McGregor  appeared 
arrayed  in  the  black  suit  he  had  purchased  for  his 
mother's  funeral.  His  flaming  red  hair  and  rude 
countenance  arrested  the  attention  of  all.  About 
him  on  all  sides  crackled  talk  and  laughter.  As 
Margaret  had  been  alarmed  and  ill  at  ease  in  the 
crowded  court  room  where  a  fight  for  life  went  on, 
so  he  among  these  people  who  went  about  uttering 
little  broken  sentences  and  laughing  foolishly  at 
nothing,  felt  depressed  and  uncertain.  In  the  midst 


224  MARCHING  MEN 

of  the  company  he  occupied  much  the  same  posi 
tion  as  a  new  and  ferocious  animal  safely  caught 
and  now  on  caged  exhibition.  They  thought  it 
clever  of  Mrs.  Ormsby  to  have  him  and  he  was,  in 
not  quite  the  accepted  sense,  the  lion  of  the  evening. 
The  rumour  that  he  would  be  there  had  induced 
more  than  one  woman  to  cut  other  engagements 
and  come  to  where  she  could  take  the  hand  of  and 
talk  with  this  hero  of  the  newspapers,  and  the  men 
shaking  his  hand,  looked  at  him  sharply  and  won 
dered  what  power  and  what  cunning  lay  in  him. 

In  the  newspapers  after  the  murder  trial  a  cry 
had  sprung  up  about  the  person  of  McGregor. 
Fearing  to  print  in  full  the  substance  of  his  speech 
on  vice,  its  ownership  and  its  significance,  they  had 
filled  their  columns  with  talk  of  the  man.  The  huge 
Scotch  lawyer  of  the  Tenderloin  was  proclaimed  as 
something  new  and  startling  in  the  grey  mass  of 
the  city's  population.  Then  as  in  the  brave  days 
that  followed  the  man  caught  irresistibly  the  imag 
ination  of  writing  men,  himself  dumb  in  written  or 
spoken  words  except  in  the  heat  of  an  inspired  out 
burst  when  he  expressed  perfectly  that  pure  brute 
force,  the  lust  for  which  sleeps  in  the  souls  of 
artists. 

Unlike  the  men  the  beautifully  gowned  women 
at  the  reception  had  no  fear  of  McGregor.  They 
saw  in  him  something  to  be  tamed  and  conquered 
and  they  gathered  in  groups  to  engage  him  in  talk 


MARCHING  MEN  225 

and  return  the  inquiring  stare  in  his  eyes.  They 
thought  that  with  such  an  unconquered  soul  about, 
life  might  take  on  new  fervour  and  interest.  Like 
the  women  who  sat  playing  with  toothpicks  in 
O'Toole's  restaurant,  more  than  one  of  the  women 
at  Mrs.  Ormsby's  reception  had  a  half  unconscious 
wish  that  such  a  man  might  be  her  lover. 

One  after  another  Margaret  brought  forward  the 
men  and  women  of  her  world  to  couple  their  names 
with  McGregor's  and  try  to  establish  him  in  the 
atmosphere  of  assurance  and  ease  that  pervaded  the 
house  and  the  people.  He  stood  by  the  wall  bow 
ing  and  staring  boldly  about  and  thought  that  the 
confusion  and  distraction  of  mind  that  had  followed 
his  first  visit  to  Margaret  at  the  settlement  house 
was  being  increased  immeasurably  with  every  pass 
ing  moment.  He  looked  at  the  glittering  chande 
lier  on  the  ceiling  and  at  the  people  moving  about — 
the  men  at  ease,  comfortable — the  women  with  won 
derfully  delicate  expressive  hands  and  with  their 
round  white  necks  and  shoulders  showing  above 
their  gowns  and  a  feeling  of  utter  helplessness  per 
vaded  him.  Never  before  had  he  been  in  a  company 
so  feminine.  He  thought  of  the  beautiful  women 
about  him,  seeing  them  in  his  direct  crude  and 
forceful  way  merely  as  females  at  work  among 
males,  carrying  forward  some  purpose.  "With  all 
the  softly  suggestive  sensuality  of  their  dress  and 
their  persons  they  must  in  some  way  have  sapped 


226  MARCHING  MEN 

the  strength  and  the  purpose  of  these  men  who 
move  among  them  so  indifferently,"  he  thought. 
Within  himself  he  knew  of  nothing  to  set  up  as  a 
defence  against  what  he  believed  such  beauty  must 
become  to  the  man  who  lived  with  it.  Its  power 
he  thought  must  be  something  monumental  and  he 
looked  with  admiration  at  the  quiet  face  of  Mar 
garet's  father,  moving  among  his  guests. 

McGregor  went  out  of  the  house  and  stood  in 
the  half  darkness  on  the  veranda.  When  Mrs. 
Ormsby  and  Margaret  followed  he  looked  at  the 
older  woman  and  sensed  her  antagonism.  The  old 
love  of  battle  swept  in  on  him  and  he  turned  and 
stood  in  silence  looking  at  her.  "The  fine  lady,"  he 
thought,  "is  no  better  than  the  women  of  the  First 
Ward.  She  has  an  idea  I  will  surrender  without  a 
fight" 

Out  of  his  mind  went  the  fear  of  the  assurance 
and  stability  of  Margaret's  people  that  had  almost 
overcome  him  in  the  house.  The  woman  who  had 
all  her  life  thought  of  herself  as  one  waiting  only 
the  opportunity  to  appear  as  a  commanding  figure 
in  affairs  made  by  her  presence  a  failure  of  the 
effort  to  submerge  McGregor. 

On  the  veranda  stood  the  three  people.  McGreg 
or  the  silent  became  the  talkative.  Seized  with  one 
of  the  inspirations  that  were  a  part  of  his  nature 
.he  threw  talk  about,  sparring  and  returning  thrust 


MARCHING  MEN  227 

for  thrust  with  Mrs.  Ormsby.  When  he  thought 
that  the  time  had  come  for  him  to  get  at  the  thing 
that  was  in  his  mind  he  went  into  the  house  and 
presently  came  out  carrying  his  hat.  The  quality 
of  harshness  that  crept  into  his  voice  when  he  was 
excited  or  determined  startled  Laura  Ormsby. 
Looking  down  at  her,  he  said,  "I  am  going  to  take 
your  daughter  for  a  walk  in  the  street.  I  want  to 
talk  with  her." 

Laura  hesitated  and  smiled  uncertainly.  She  de 
termined  to  speak  out,  to  be  like  the  man  crude  and 
direct.  When  she  had  her  mind  fixed  and  ready 
Margaret  and  McGregor  were  already  half  way 
down  the  gravel  walk  to  the  gate  and  the  oppor 
tunity  to  distinguish  herself  had  passed. 

McGregor  walked  beside  Margaret,  absorbed  in 
thoughts  of  her.  "I  am  engaged  in  a  work  here," 
he  said,  waving  his  hand  vaguely  toward  the  city. 
"It  is  a  big  work  and  it  takes  a  lot  out  of  me.  I  have 
not  come  to  see  you,  because  I've  been  uncertain. 
I've  been  afraid  you  would  overcome  me  and  drive 
thoughts  of  the  work  out  of  my  head." 

By  the  iron  gate  at  the  end  of  the  gravel  walk 
they  turned  and  faced  each  other.  McGregor  leaned 
against  the  brick  wall  and  looked  at  her.  "I  want 
you  to  marry  me,"  he  said.  "I  think  of  you  con 
stantly.  Thinking  of  you  I  can  only  half  do  my 
work.  I  get  to  thinking  that  another  man  may  come 


228  MARCHING  MEN 

and  take  you  and  I  waste  hour  after  hour  being 
afraid." 

She  put  a  trembling  hand  upon  his  arm  and  he, 
thinking  to  check  an  attempt  at  an  answer  before  he 
had  finished,  hurried  on. 

"There  are  things  to  be  said  and  understood  be 
tween  us  before  I  can  come  to  you  as  a  suitor.  I 
did  not  think  I  should  feel  toward  a  woman  as  I 
feel  toward  you  and  I  have  certain  adjustments  to 
make.  I  thought  I  could  get  along  without  your 
kind  of  women.  I  thought  you  were  not  for  me — 
with  the  work  I  have  thought  out  to  do  in  the  world. 
If  you  will  not  marry  me  I'll  be  glad  to  know  now 
so  that  I  can  get  my  mind  straightened  out." 

Margaret  raised  her  hand  and  laid  it  on  his 
shoulder.  The  act  was  a  kind  of  acknowledgment 
of  his  right  to  talk  to  her  so  directly.  She  said 
nothing.  Filled  with  a  thousand  messages  of  love 
and  tenderness  she  longed  to  pour  into  his  ear  she 
stood  in  silence  on  the  gravel  path  with  her  hand 
on  his  shoulder. 

And  then  an  absurd  thing  happened.  The  fear 
that  Margaret  might  come  to  some  quick  decision 
that  would  affect  all  of  their  future  together  made 
McGregor  frantic.  He  did  not  want  her  to  speak 
and  wished  his  own  words  unsaid.  "Wait.  Not 
now,"  he  cried  and  threw  up  his  hand  intending  to 
take  her  hand.  His  fist  struck  the  arm  that  lay  on 
his  shoulder  and  it  in  turn  knocked  his  hat  flying 


MARCHING  MEN  229 

into  the  road.  McGregor  started  to  run  after  it 
and  then  stopped.  He  put  his  hand  to  his  head  and 
appeared  lost  in  thought.  When  he  turned  again  to 
pursue  the  hat  Margaret,  unable  longer  to  control 
herself,  shouted  with  laughter. 

Hatless,  McGregor  walked  up  Drexel  Boulevard 
in  the  soft  stillness  of  the  summer  night.  He  was 
annoyed  at  the  outcome  of  the  evening  and  in  his 
heart  half  wished  that  Margaret  had  sent  him  away 
defeated.  His  arms  ached  to  have  her  against  his 
breast  but  his  mind  kept  presenting  one  after  an 
other  the  objections  to  marriage  with  her.  "Men 
are  submerged  by  such  women  and  forget  their 
work,"  he  told  himself.  "They  sit  looking  into  the 
soft  brown  eyes  of  their  beloved,  thinking  of  hap 
piness.  A  man  should  go  about  his  work  thinking 
of  that.  The  fire  that  runs  through  the  veins  of 
his  body  should  light  his  mind.  One  wants  to  take 
the  love  of  woman  as  an  end  in  life  and  the  woman 
accepts  that  and  is  made  happy  by  it."  He  thought 
with  gratitude  of  Edith  in  her  shop  on  Monroe 
Street.  "I  do  not  sit  in  my  room  at  night  dream 
ing  of  taking  her  in  my  arms  and  pouring  kisses  on 
her  lips,"  he  whispered. 

•  •••••» 

In  the  door  of  her  house  Mrs.  Ormsby  had  stood 
watching  McGregor  and  Margaret.  She  had  seen 
them  stop  at  the  end  of  the  walk.  The  figure  of  the 
man  was  lost  in  shadows  and  that  of  Margaret  stood 


230  MARCHING  MEN 

alone,  outlined  against  a  distant  light  She  saw 
Margaret's  hand  thrust  out — was  she  clutching  his 
sleeve — and  heard  the  murmur  of  voices.  And 
then  the  man  precipitating  himself  into  the  street. 
His  hat  catapulted  ahead  of  him  and  a  quick  out 
burst  of  half -hysterical  laughter  broke  the  still 
ness. 

Laura  Ormsby  was  furious.  Although  she  hated 
McGregor  she  could  not  bear  the  thought  that 
laughter  should  break  the  spell  of  romance.  "She 
is  just  like  her  father,"  she  muttered.  "At  least  she 
might  show  some  spirit  and  not  be  like  a  wooden 
thing,  ending  her  first  talk  with  a  lover  with  a  laugh 
like  that." 

As  for  Margaret  she  stood  in  the  darkness  trem 
bling  with  happiness.  She  imagined  herself  going 
up  the  dark  stairway  to  McGregor's  office  in  Van 
Buren  Street  where  once  she  had  gone  to  take  him 
news  of  the  murder  case — laying  her  hand  upon  his 
shoulder  and  saying,  "Take  me  in  your  arms  and 
kiss  me.  I  am  your  woman.  I  want  to  live  with 
you.  I  am  ready  to  renounce  my  people  and  my 
world  and  to  live  your  life  for  your  sake."  Mar 
garet,  standing  in  the  darkness  before  the  huge  old 
house  in  Drexel  Boulevard,  imagined  herself  with 
Beaut  McGregor — living  with  him  as  his  wife  in  a 
small  apartment  over  a  fish  market  on  a  West  Side 
street.  Why  a  fish  market  she  could  not  have 
said. 


EDITH  CARSON  was  six  years  older  than  Mc 
Gregor  and  lived  entirely  within  herself.  Hers  was 
one  of  those  natures  that  do  not  express  themselves 
in  words.  Although  at  his  coming  into  the  shop 
her  heart  beat  high  no  colour  came  to  her  cheeks 
and  her  pale  eyes  did  not  flash  back  into  his  a  mes 
sage.  Day  after  day  she  sat  in  her  shop  at  work, 
quiet,  strong  in  her  own  kind  of  faith,  ready  to 
give  her  money,  her  reputation,  and  if  need  be  her 
life  to  the  working  out  of  her  own  dream  of  woman 
hood.  She  did  not  see  in  McGregor  the  making  of 
a  man  of  genius  as  did  Margaret  and  did  not  hope 
to  express  through  him  a  secret  desire  for  power. 
She  was  a  working  woman  and  to  her  he  repre 
sented  all  men.  In  her  secret  heart  she  thought  of 
him  merely  as  the  man — her  man. 

And  to  McGregor  Edith  was  companion  and 
friend.  He  saw  her  sitting  year  after  year  in  her 
shop,  putting  money  into  the  savings  bank,  keeping 
a  cheerful  front  before  the  world,  never  assertive, 
kindly,  in  her  own  way  sure  of  herself.  "We  could 
go  on  forever  as  we  are  now  and  she  be  none  the 
less  pleased,"  he  told  himself. 

231 


232  MARCHING  MEN 

One  afternoon  after  a  particularly  hard  week  of 
work  he  went  out  to  her  place  to  sit  in  her  little 
workroom  and  think  out  the  matter  of  marrying 
Margaret  Ormsby.  It  was  a  quiet  season  in  Edith's 
trade  and  she  was  alone  in  the  shop  serving  a  cus 
tomer.  McGregor  lay  down  upon  the  little  couch 
in  the  workroom.  For  a  week  he  had  been  speak 
ing  to  gatherings  of  workmen  night  after  night  and 
later  had  sat  in  his  own  room  thinking  of  Mar 
garet.  Now  on  the  couch  with  the  murmur  of 
voices  in  his  ears  he  fell  asleep. 

When  he  awoke  it  was  late  in  the  night  and  on 
the  floor  by  the  side  of  the  couch  sat  Edith  with  her 
ringers  in  his  hair. 

McGregor  opened  his  eyes  quietly  and  looked  at 
her.  He  could  see  a  tear  running  down  her  cheek. 
She  was  staring  straight  ahead  at  the  wall  of  the 
room  and  by  the  dim  light  that  came  through  a  win 
dow  he  could  see  the  drawn  cords  of  her  little  neck 
and  the  knot  of  mouse  coloured  hair  on  her  head. 

McGregor  closed  his  eyes  quickly.  He  felt  like 
one  who  has  been  aroused  out  of  sleep  by  a  dash  of 
cold  water  across  his  breast.  It  came  over  him  with 
a  rush  that  Edith  Carson  had  been  expecting  some 
thing  from  him — something  he  was  not  prepared  to 
give. 

She  got  up  after  a  time  and  crept  quietly  away 
into  the  shop  and  with  a  great  clatter  and  bustle  he 
arose  also  and  began  calling  loudly.  He  demanded 


MARCHING  MEN  233 

the  time  and  complained  about  a  missed  appoint 
ment.  Turning  up  the  gas,  Edith  walked  with  him 
to  the  door.  On  her  face  sat  the  old  placid  smile. 
McGregor  hurried  away  into  the  darkness  and  spent 
the  rest  of  the  night  walking  in  the  streets. 

The  next  day  he  went  to  Margaret  Ormsby  at 
the  settlement  house.  With  her  he  used  no  art. 
Driving  straight  to  the  point  he  told  her  of  the 
undertaker's  daughter  sitting  beside  him  on  the 
eminence  above  Coal  Creek,  of  the  barber  and  his 
talk  of  women  on  the  park  bench  and  how  that 
had  led  him  to  that  other  woman  kneeling  on  the 
floor  in  the  little  frame  house,  his  fists  in  her  hair 
and  of  Edith  Carson  whose  companionship  had 
saved  him  from  all  of  these. 

"If  you  can't  hear  all  of  this  and  still  want  life 
with  me,"  he  said,  "there  is  no  future  for  us  to 
gether.  I  want  you.  I'm  afraid  of  you  and  afraid 
of  my  love  for  you  but  still  I  want  you.  I've  been 
seeing  your  face  floating  above  the  audiences  in  the 
halls  where  I've  been  at  work.  I've  looked  at  babies 
in  the  arms  of  workingmen's  wives  and  wanted  to 
see  my  babe  in  your  arms.  I  care  more  for  what 
I  am  doing  than  I  do  for  you  but  I  love  you." 

McGregor  arose  and  stood  over  her.  "I  love  you 
with  my  arms  aching  to  close  about  you,  with  my 
brain  planning  the  triumph  of  the  workers,  with  all 
of  the  old  perplexing  human  love  that  I  had  almost 
thought  I  would  never  want. 


234  MARCHING  MEN 

"I  can't  bear  this  waiting.  I  can't  bear  this  not 
knowing  so  that  I  can  tell  Edith.  I  can't  have  my 
mind  filled  with  the  need  of  you  just  as  men  are 
beginning  to  catch  the  infection  of  an  idea  and  are 
looking  to  me  for  clear-headed  leadership.  Take  me 
or  let  me  go  and  live  my  life." 

Margaret  Ormsby  looked  at  McGregor.  When 
she  spoke  her  voice  was  as  quiet  as  the  voice  of  her 
father  telling  a  workman  in  the  shop  what  to  do 
with  a  broken  machine. 

"I  am  going  to  marry  you,"  she  said  simply.  "I 
am  full  of  the  thought  of  it.  I  want  you,  want  you 
so  blindly  that  I  think  you  can't  understand." 

She  stood  up  facing  him  and  looked  into  his 
eyes. 

"You  must  wait,"  she  said.  "I  must  see  Edith,  I 
myself  must  do  that.  All  these  years  she  has  served 
you — she  has  had  that  privilege." 

McGregor  looked  across  the  table  into  the  beauti 
ful  eyes  of  the  woman  he  loved. 

"You  belong  to  me  even  if  I  do  belong  to  Edith," 
he  said. 

"I  will  see  Edith,"  Margaret  answered  again. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MCGREGOR  left  the  telling  of  the  story  of  his  love 
to  Margaret.  Edith  Carson  who  knew  defeat  so 
well  and  who  had  in  her  the  courage  of  defeat  was 
to  meet  defeat  at  his  hands  through  the  undefeated 
woman  and  he  let  himself  forget  the  whole  matter. 
For  a  month  he  had  been  trying  to  get  workingmen 
to  take  up  the  idea  of  the  Marching  Men  without 
success  and  after  the  talk  with  Margaret  he  kept 
doggedly  at  the  work. 

And  then  one  evening  something  happened  that 
aroused  him.  The  Marching  Men  idea  that  had 
become  more  than  half  intellectualised  became  again 
a  burning  passion  and  the  matter  of  his  life  with 
women  got  itself  cleared  up  swiftly  and  finally. 

It  was  night  and  McGregor  stood  upon  the  plat 
form  of  the  Elevated  Railroad  at  State  and  Van 
Buren  Streets.  He  had  been  feeling  guilty  con 
cerning  Edith  and  had  been  intending  to  go  out  to 
her  place  but  the  scene  in  the  street  below  fasci 
nated  him  and  he  remained  standing,  looking  along 
the  lighted  thoroughfare. 

For  a  week  there  had  been  a  strike  of  teamsters 
in  the  city  and  that  afternoon  there  had  been  a 

235 


236  MARCHING  MEN 

riot.  Windows  had  been  smashed  and  several  men 
injured.  Now  the  evening  crowds  gathered  and 
speakers  climbed  upon  boxes  to  talk.  Everywhere 
there  was  a  great  wagging  of  jaws  and  waving  of 
arms.  McGregor  grew  reminiscent.  Into  his  mind 
came  the  little  mining  town  and  he  saw  himself 
again  a  boy  sitting  in  the  darkness  on  the  steps  be 
fore  his  mother's  bake  shop  and  trying  to  think. 
Again  in  fancy  he  saw  the  disorganised  miners 
tumbling  out  of  the  saloon  to  stand  on  the  street 
swearing  and  threatening  and  again  he  was  filled 
with  contempt  for  them. 

And  then  in  the  heart  of  the  great  western  city 
the  same  thing  happened  that  had  happened  when 
he  was  a  boy  in  Pennsylvania.  The  officials  of  the 
city,  having  decided  to  startle  the  striking  teamsters 
by  a  display  of  force,  sent  a  regiment  of  state  troops 
marching  through  the  streets.  The  soldiers  were 
dressed  in  brown  uniforms.  They  were  silent.  As 
McGregor  looked  down  they  turned  out  of  Polk 
Street  and  came  with  swinging  measured  tread  up 
State  Street  past  the  disorderly  mobs  on  the  side 
walk  and  the  equally  disorderly  speakers  on  the 
curb. 

McGregor's  heart  beat  so  that  he  nearly  choked. 
The  men  in  the  uniforms,  each  in  himself  meaning 
nothing,  had  become  by  their  marching  together  all 
alive  with  meaning.  Again  he  wanted  to  shout,  to 
run  down  into  the  street  and  embrace  them.  The 


MARCHING  MEN  237 

strength  in  them  seemed  to  kiss,  as  with  the  kiss  of 
a  lover,  the  strength  within  himself  and  when  they 
had  passed  and  the  disorderly  jangle  of  voices  broke 
out  again  he  got  on  a  car  and  went  out  to  Edith's 
with  his  heart  afire  with  resolution. 

Edith  Carson's  millinery  shop  was  in  the  hands 
of  a  new  owner.  She  had  sold  out  and  fled.  Mc 
Gregor  stood  in  the  show  room  looking  about  him 
at  the  cases  filled  with  their  feathery  finery  and  at 
the  hats  along  the  wall.  The  light  from  a  street 
lamp  that  came  in  at  the  window  started  millions  of 
tiny  motes  dancing  before  his  eyes. 

Out  of  the  room  at  the  back  of  the  shop — the 
room  where  he  had  seen  the  tears  of  suffering  in 
Edith's  eyes — came  a  woman  who  told  him  of 
Edith's  having  sold  the  business.  She  was  excited 
by  the  message  she  had  to  deliver  and  walked  past 
the  waiting  man,  going  to  the  screen  door  to  stand 
with  her  back  to  him  and  look  up  the  street. 

Out  of  the  corners  of  her  eyes  the  woman  looked 
at  him.  She  was  a  small  black-haired  woman  with 
two  gleaming  gold  teeth  and  with  glasses  on  her 
nose.  "There  has  been  a  lovers'  quarrel  here,"  she 
told  herself. 

"I  have  bought  the  store,"  she  said  aloud.  "She 
told  me  to  tell  you  that  she  had  gone." 

McGregor  did  not  wait  for  more  but  hurried  past 
the  woman  into  the  street.  In  his  heart  was  a  feel- 


238  MARCHING  MEN 

ing  of  dumb  aching  loss.  On  an  impulse  he  turned 
and  ran  back. 

Standing  in  the  street  by  the  screen  door  he 
shouted  hoarsely.  "Where  did  she  go?"  he  de 
manded. 

The  woman  laughed  merrily.  She  felt  that  she 
was  getting  with  the  shop  a  flavour  of  romance  and 
adventure  very  attractive  to  her.  Then  she  walked 
to  the  door  and  smiled  through  the  screen.  "She 
has  only  just  left,"  she  said.  "She  went  to  the 
Burlington  station.  I  think  she  has  gone  West.  I 
heard  her  tell  the  man  about  her  trunk.  She  has 
been  around  here  for  two  days  since  I  bought  the 
shop.  I  think  she  has  been  waiting  for  you  to  come. 
You  did  not  come  and  now  she  has  gone  and  per 
haps  you  won't  find  her.  She  did  not  look  like  one 
who  would  quarrel  with  a  lover." 

The  woman  in  the  shop  laughed  softly  as  Mc 
Gregor  hurried  away.  "Now  who  would  think  that 
quiet  little  woman  would  have  such  a  lover?"  she 
asked  herself. 

Down  the  street  ran  McGregor  and  raising  his 
hand  stopped  a  passing  automobile.  The  woman 
saw  him  seated  in  the  automobile  talking  to  a  grey- 
haired  man  at  the  wheel  and  then  the  machine 
turned  and  disappeared  up  the  street  at  a  law-break 
ing  pace. 

McGregor  had  again  a  new  light  on  the  char 
acter  of  Edith  Carson.  "I  can  see  her  doing  it/* 


MARCHING  MEN  239 

he  told  himself — "cheerfully  telling  Margaret  that 
it  didn't  matter  and  all  the  time  planning  this  in 
the  back  of  her  head.  Here  all  of  these  years  she 
has  been  leading  a  life  of  her  own.  The  secret  long 
ings,  the  desires  and  the  old  human  hunger  for  love 
and  happiness  and  expression  have  been  going  on  un 
der  her  placid  exterior  as  they  have  under  my  own." 

McGregor  thought  of  the  busy  days  behind  him 
and  realised  with  shame  how  little  Edith  had  seen 
of  him.  It  was  in  the  days  when  his  big  movement 
of  The  Marching  Men  was  just  coming  into  the 
light  and  on  the  night  before  he  had  been  in  a  con 
ference  of  labour  men  who  had  wanted  him  to  make 
a  public  demonstration  of  the  power  he  had  secretly 
been  building  up.  Every  day  his  office  was  filled 
with  newspaper  men  who  asked  questions  and  de 
manded  explanations.  And  in  the  meantime  Edith 
had  been  selling  her  shop  to  that  woman  and  getting 
ready  to  disappear. 

In  the  railroad  station  McGregor  found  Edith 
sitting  in  a  corner  with  her  face  buried  in  the  crook 
of  her  arm.  Gone  was  the  placid  exterior.  Her 
shoulders  seemed  narrower.  Her  hand,  hanging 
over  the  back  of  the  seat  in  front  of  her,  was  white 
and  lifeless. 

McGregor  said  nothing  but  snatched  up  the 
brown  leather  bag  that  sat  beside  her  on  the  floor 
and  taking  her  by  the  arm  led  her  up  a  flight  of 
stone  steps  to  the  street. 


CHAPTER  VII 

IN  the  Ormsby  household  father  and  daughter 
sat  in  the  darkness  on  the  veranda.  After  Laura 
Ormsby's  encounter  with  McGregor  there  had  been 
another  talk  between  her  and  David.  Now  she  had 
gone  on  a  visit  to  her  home-town  in  Wisconsin  and 
father  and  daughter  sat  together. 

To  his  wife  David  had  talked  pointedly  of  Mar 
garet's  affair.  "It  is  not  a  matter  of  good  sense," 
he  had  said ;  "one  can  not  pretend  there  is  a  pros 
pect  of  happiness  in  such  an  affair.  The  man  is  no 
fool  and  may  some  day  be  a  big  man  but  it  will 
not  be  the  kind  of  bigness  that  will  bring  either 
happiness  or  contentment  to  a  woman  like  Mar 
garet.  He  may  end  his  life  in  jail." 

McGregor  and  Edith  walked  up  the  gravel  walk 
and  stood  by  the  front  door  of  the  Ormsby  house. 
From  the  darkness  on  the  veranda  came  the  hearty 
voice  of  David.  "Come  and  sit  out  here/'  he  said. 

McGregor  stood  silently  waiting.  Edith  clung  to 
his  arm.  Margaret  got  up  and  coming  forward 
stood  looking  at  them.  With  a  jump  at  her  heart 

240 


MARCHING  MEN  241 

she  sensed  the  crisis  suggested  by  the  presence  of 
these  two  people.  Her  voice  trembled  with  alarm. 
"Come  in,"  she  said,  turning  and  leading  the  way 
into  the  house. 

The  man  and  woman  followed  Margaret.  At 
the  door  McGregor  stopped  and  called  to  David. 
"We  want  you  in  here  with  us,"  he  said  harshly. 

In  the  drawing  room  the  four  people  waited. 
The  great  chandelier  threw  its  light  down  upon 
them.  In  her  chair  Edith  sat  and  looked  at  the 
floor. 

"I've  made  a  mistake,"  said  McGregor.  "I've 
been  going  on  and  on  making  a  mistake."  He 
turned  to  Margaret.  "We  didn't  count  on  some 
thing  here.  There  is  Edith.  She  isn't  what  we 
thought." 

Edith  said  nothing.  The  weary  stoop  stayed  in 
her  shoulders.  She  felt  that  if  McGregor  had 
brought  her  to  the  house  and  to  this  woman  he 
loved  to  seal  their  parting  she  would  sit  quietly 
until  that  was  over  and  then  go  on  to  the  loneliness 
she  believed  must  be  her  portion. 

To  Margaret  the  coming  of  the  man  and  woman 
was  a  portent  of  evil.  She  also  was  silent,  expect 
ing  a  shock.  When  her  lover  spoke  she  also  looked 
at  the  floor.  To  herself  she  was  saying,  "He  is 
going  to  take  himself  away  and  marry  this  other 
woman.  I  must  be  prepared  to  hear  him  say  that." 

In  the  doorway  stood  David.     "He  is  going  to 


242  MARCHING  MEN 

give  me  back  Margaret,"  he  thought,  and  his  heart 
danced  with  happiness. 

McGregor  walked  across  the  room  and  stood 
looking  at  the  two  women.  His  blue  eyes  were  cold 
and  filled  with  intense  curiosity  concerning  them  and 
himself.  He  wanted  to  test  them  and  to  test  him 
self.  "If  I  am  clear-headed  now  I  shall  go  on  with 
the  dream,"  he  thought.  "If  I  fail  in  this  I  shall 
fail  in  everything."  Turning  he  took  hold  of  the 
sleeve  of  David's  coat  and  pulled  him  across  the 
room  so  that  the  two  men  stood  together.  Then  he 
looked  hard  at  Margaret.  As  he  talked  to  her  he 
continued  to  stand  thus  with  his  hand  on  her 
father's  arm.  The  action  caught  David's  fancy  and 
a  thrill  of  admiration  ran  through  him.  "Here  is 
a  man,"  he  told  himself. 

"You  thought  Edith  was  ready  to  see  us  get 
married.  Well  she  was.  She  is  now  and  you  see 
what  it  has  done  to  her,"  said  McGregor. 

The  daughter  of  the  ploughmaker  started  to 
speak.  Her  face  was  chalky  white.  McGregor 
threw  up  his  hands. 

"Wait,"  he  said,  "a  man  and  woman  can't  live 
together  for  years  and  then  part  like  two  men 
friends.  Something  gets  into  them  to  prevent. 
They  find  they  love  each  other.  I've  found  out  that 
though  I  want  you,  I  love  Edith.  She  loves  me. 
Look  at  her." 

Margaret  half  arose  from  her  chair.     McGregor 


MARCHING  MEN  243 

went  on.  Into  his  voice  came  the  harsh  quality 
that  made  men  fear  and  follow  him.  "Oh,  we'll 
be  married,  Margaret  and  I,"  he  said ;  "her  beauty 
has  won  me.  I  follow  beauty.  I  want  beautiful 
children.  That  is  my  right." 

He  turned  to  Edith  and  stood  staring  at  her. 

"You  and  I  could  never  have  the  feeling  Mar 
garet  and  I  had  when  we  looked  into  each  other's 
eyes.  We  ached  with  it — each  wanting  the  other. 
You  are  made  to  endure.  You  would  get  over  any 
thing  and  be  cheerful  after  a  while.  You  know 
that — don't  you?" 

The  eyes  of  Edith  came  up  level  with  his  own, 

"Yes  I  know,"  she  said. 

Margaret  Ormsby  jumped  up  from  her  chair,  her 
eyes  swimming. 

"Stop,"  she  cried.  "I  do  not  want  you.  I  would 
never  marry  you  now.  You  belong  to  her.  You 
are  Edith's." 

McGregor's  voice  became  soft  and  quiet. 

"Oh,  I  know,"  he  said;  "I  know!  I  know!  But 
I  want  children.  Look  at  Edith.  Do  you  think  she 
could  bear  children  to  me?" 

A  change  came  over  Edith  Carson.  Her  eyes 
hardened  and  her  shoulders  straightened. 

"That's  for  me  to  say,"  she  cried,  springing  for 
ward  and  clutching  his  arm.  "That  is  between 
me  and  God.  If  you  intend  to  marry  me  come  now 


244  MARCHING  MEN 

and  do  it.  I  was  not  afraid  to  give  you  up  and  I'm 
not  afraid  that  I  shall  die  bearing  children." 

Dropping  McGregor's  arm  Edith  ran  across  the 
room  and  stood  before  Margaret.  "How  do  you 
know  you  are  more  beautiful  or  can  bear  more 
beautiful  children?"  she  demanded.  "What  do 
you  mean  by  beauty  anyway?  I  deny  your  beauty." 
She  turned  to  McGregor.  "Look,"  she  cried,  "she 
does  not  stand  the  test." 

Pride  swept  over  the  woman  that  had  come  to 
life  within  the  body  of  the  little  milliner.  With  calm 
eyes  she  stared  at  the  people  in  the  room  and  when 
she  looked  again  toward  Margaret  there  was  a  chal 
lenge  in  her  voice. 

"Beauty  has  to  endure,"  she  said  swiftly.  "It 
has  to  be  daring.  It  has  to  outlive  long  years  of 
life  and  many  defeats."  A  hard  look  came  into  her 
eyes  as  she  challenged  the  daughter  of  wealth.  "I 
had  the  courage  to  be  defeated  and  I  have  the  cour 
age  to  take  what  I  want,"  she  said.  "Have  you  that 
courage?  If  you  have  take  this  man.  You  want 
him  and  so  do  I.  Take  his  arm  and  walk  away 
with  him.  Do  it  now,  here  before  my  eyes." 

Margaret  shook  her  head.  Her  body  trembled 
and  her  eyes  looked  wildly  about.  She  turned  to 
David  Ormsby.  "I  did  not  know  that  life  could  be 
like  this,"  she  said.  "Why  didn't  you  tell  me?  She 
is  right.  I  am  afraid." 

A  light  came  into  McGregor's  eyes  and  he  turned 


MARCHING  MEN  245 

quickly  about.  "I  see,"  he  said,  looking  sharply  at 
Edith,  "you  have  also  your  purpose."  Turning 
again  he  looked  into  the  eyes  of  David. 

"There  is  something  to  be  decided  here.  It  is 
perhaps  the  supreme  test  of  a  man's  life.  One 
struggles  to  keep  a  thought  in  mind,  to  be  imper 
sonal,  to  see  that  life  has  a  purpose  outside  his  own 
purpose.  You  have  perhaps  made  that  struggle. 
You  see  I'm  making  it  now.  I'm  going  to  take 
Edith  and  go  back  to  work." 

At  the  door  McGregor  stopped  and  put  out  his 
hand  to  David  who  took  it  and  looked  at  the  big 
lawyer  respectfully. 

"I'm  glad  to  see  you  go,"  said  the  ploughmaker 
briefly. 

"I'm  glad  to  be  going,"  said  McGregor,  under 
standing  that  there  was  nothing  but  relief  and  hon 
est  antagonism  in  the  voice  and  in  the  mind  of 
David  Ormsby. 


BOOK  VI 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  Marching  Men  Movement  was  never  a  thing 
to  intellectualise.  For  years  McGregor  tried  to  get 
it  under  way  by  talking.  He  did  not  succeed.  The 
rhythm  and  swing  that  was  at  the  heart  of  the 
movement  hung  fire.  The  man  passed  through  long 
periods  of  depression  and  had  to  drive  himself  for 
ward.  And  then  after  the  scene  with  Margaret  and 
Edith  in  the  Ormsby  house  came  action. 

There  was  a  man  named  Mosby  about  whose  fig 
ure  the  action  for  a  time  revolved.  He  was  bar 
tender  for  Neil  Hunt,  a  notorious  character  of 
South  State  Street,  and  had  once  been  a  lieutenant 
in  the  army.  Mosby  was  what  in  modern  society  is 
called  a  rascal.  After  West  Point  and  a  few  years 
at  some  isolated  army  post  he  began  to  drink  and 
one  night  during  a  debauch  and  when  half  crazed 
by  the  dullness  of  his  life  he  shot  a  private  through 
the  shoulder.  He  was  arrested  and  put  on  his 
honour  not  to  escape  but  did  escape.  For  years 
he  drifted  about  the  world  a  haggard  cynical  figure 

247 


248  MARCHING  MEN 

who  got  drunk  whenever  money  came  his  way  and 
who  would  do  anything  to  break  the  monotony  of 
existence. 

Mosby  was  enthusiastic  about  the  Marching  Men 
idea.  He  saw  in  it  an  opportunity  to  worry  and 
alarm  his  fellow  men.  He  talked  a  union  of  bar 
tenders  and  waiters  to  which  he  belonged  into  giv 
ing  the  idea  a  trial  and  in  the  morning  they  began 
to  march  up  and  down  in  the  strip  of  parkland  that 
faced  the  lake  at  the  edge  of  the  First  Ward.  "Keep 
your  mouths  shut,"  commanded  Mosby.  "We  can 
worry  the  officials  of  this  town  like  the  devil  if  we 
work  this  right.  When  you  are  asked  questions 
say  nothing.  If  the  police  try  to  arrest  us  we  will 
swear  we  are  only  doing  it  for  the  sake  of  exer 
cise." 

Mosby's  plan  worked.  Within  a  week  crowds  be 
gan  to  gather  in  the  morning  to  watch  the  March 
ing  Men  and  the  police  started  to  make  inquiry. 
Mosby  was  delighted.  He  threw  up  his  job  as  bar 
tender  and  recruited  a  motley  company  of  young 
roughs  whom  he  induced  to  practise  the  march  step 
during  the  afternoons.  When  he  was  arrested  and 
dragged  into  court  McGregor  acted  as  his  lawyer 
and  he  was  discharged.  "I  want  to  get  these  men 
out  into  the  open,"  Mosby  declared,  looking  very  in 
nocent  and  guileless.  "You  can  see  for  yourself 
that  waiters  and  bartenders  get  pale  and  stoop- 
shouldered  at  their  work  and  as  for  these  young 


MARCHING  MEN  249 

roughs  isn't  it  better  for  society  to  have  them  out 
there  marching  about  than  idling  in  bar  rooms  and 
planning  God  knows  what  mischief?" 

A  grin  appeared  over  the  face  of  the  First  Ward. 
McGregor  and  Mosby  organised  another  company 
of  marchers  and  a  young  man  who  had  been  a  ser 
geant  in  a  company  of  regulars  was  induced  to  help 
with  the  drilling.  To  the  men  themselves  it  was  all 
a  joke,  a  game  that  appealed  to  the  mischievous  boy 
in  them.  Everybody  was  curious  and  that  gave  the 
thing  tang.  They  grinned  as  they  marched  up  and 
down.  For  a  while  they  exchanged  gibes  with  the 
spectators  but  McGregor  put  a  stop  to  that.  "Be 
silent,"  he  said,  going  about  among  the  men  dur 
ing  the  rest  periods.  "That's  the  best  thing  to  do. 
Be  silent  and  attend  to  business  and  your  march 
ing  will  be  ten  times  as  effective." 

The  Marching  Men  Movement  grew.  A  young 
Jewish  newspaper  man,  half  rascal,  half  poet,  wrote 
a  scare-head  story  for  one  of  the  Sunday  papers 
announcing  the  birth  of  the  Republic  of  Labour. 
The  story  was  illustrated  by  a  drawing  showing 
McGregor  leading  a  vast  horde  of  men  across  an 
open  plain  toward  a  city  whose  tall  chimneys  belched 
forth  clouds  of  smoke.  Beside  McGregor  in  the 
picture  and  arrayed  in  a  gaudy  uniform  was  Mosby 
the  ex-army  officer.  In  the  article  he  was  called  the 
war  lord  of  "The  secret  republic  growing  up  with 
in  a  great  capitalistic  empire." 


250  MARCHING  MEN 

It  had  begun  to  take  form — the  movement  of  the 
Marching  Men.  Rumours  began  to  run  here  and 
there.  There  was  a  question  in  men's  eyes.  Slowly 
at  first  it  began  to  rumble  through  their  minds. 
There  was  the  tap  of  feet  clicking  sharply  on  pave 
ments.  Groups  formed,  men  laughed,  the  groups 
disappeared  only  to  again  reappear.  In  the  sun  be 
fore  factory  doors  men  stood  talking,  half  under 
standing,  beginning  to  sense  the  fact  that  there  was 
something  big  in  the  wind. 

At  first  the  movement  did  not  get  anywhere  with 
the  ranks  of  labour.  There  would  be  a  meeting,  per 
haps  a  series  of  meetings  in  one  of  the  little  halls 
where  labourers  gather  to  attend  to  the  affairs  of 
their  unions.  McGregor  would  speak.  His  voice 
harsh  and  commanding  could  be  heard  in  the  streets 
below.  Merchants  came  out  of  the  stores  and  stood 
in  the  doorways  listening.  Young  fellows  who 
smoked  cigarettes  stopped  looking  at  passing  girls 
and  gathered  in  crowds  below  the  open  windows. 
The  slow  working  brain  of  labour  was  being 
aroused. 

After  a  time  a  few  young  men,  fellows  who 
worked  at  the  saws  in  a  box  factory  and  others  who 
ran  machines  in  a  factory  where  bicycles  were  made, 
volunteered  to  follow  the  lead  of  the  men  of  the 
First  Ward.  On  summer  evenings  they  gathered  in 
vacant  lots  and  marched  back  and  forth  looking  at 
their  feet  and  laughing. 


MARCHING  MEN  251 

McGregor  insisted  upon  the  training.  He  never 
had  any  intention  of  letting  his  Marching  Men 
Movement  become  merely  a  disorganised  band  of 
walkers  such  as  we  have  all  seen  in  many  a  labour 
parade.  He  meant  that  they  should  learn  to  march 
rhythmically,  swinging  along  like  veterans.  He  was 
determined  that  the  thresh  of  feet  should  come 
finally  to  sing  a  great  song,  carrying  the  message  of 
a  powerful  brotherhood  into  the  hearts  and  brains 
of  the  marchers. 

McGregor  gave  all  of  his  time  to  the  movement. 
He  made  a  scant  living  by  the  practice  of  his  pro 
fession  but  gave  it  no  thought.  The  murder  case 
had  brought  him  other  cases  and  he  had  taken  a 
partner,  a  ferret-eyed  little  man  who  worked  out 
the  details  of  what  cases  came  to  the  firm  and  col 
lected  the  fees,  half  of  which  he  gave  to  the  part 
ner  who  was  intent  upon  something  else.  Day  after 
day,  week  after  week,  month  after  month,  Mc 
Gregor  went  up  and  down  the  city,  talking  to  work 
ers,  learning  to  talk,  striving  to  make  his  idea  un 
derstood. 

One  evening  in  September  he  stood  in  the  shadow 
of  a  factory  wall  watching  a  group  of  men  who 
marched  in  a  vacant  lot.  The  movement  had  be 
come  by  that  time  really  big.  A  flame  burned  in 
his  heart  at  the  thought  of  what  it  might  become. 
It  was  growing  dark  and  the  clouds  of  dust  raised 
by  the  feet  of  the  men  swept  across  the  face  of  the 


252  MARCHING  MEN 

departing  sun.  In  the  field  before  him  marched 
some  two  hundred  men,  the  largest  company  he  had 
been  able  to  get  together.  For  a  week  they  had 
stayed  at  the  marching  evening  after  evening  and 
were  beginning  a  little  to  understand  the  spirit  of  it. 
Their  leader  on  the  field,  a  tall  square  shouldered 
man,  had  once  been  a  captain  in  the  State  Militia 
and  now  worked  as  engineer  in  a  factory  where 
soap  was  made.  His  commands  rang  out  sharp  and 
crisp  on  the  evening  air.  "Fours  right  into  line," 
he  cried.  The  words  were  barked  forth.  The  men 
straightened  their  shoulders  and  swung  out  vigor 
ously.  They  had  begun  to  enjoy  the  marching. 

In  the  shadow  of  the  factory  wall  McGregor 
moved  uneasily  about.  He  felt  that  this  was  the 
beginning,  the  real  birth  of  his  movement,  that  these 
men  had  really  come  out  of  the  ranks  of  labour  and 
that  in  the  breasts  of  the  marching  figures  there  in 
the  open  space  understanding  was  growing. 

He  muttered  and  walked  back  and  forth.  A 
young  man,  a  reporter  on  one  of  the  city's  great 
daily  papers,  leaped  from  a  passing  street  car  and 
came  to  stand  near  him.  "What's  up  here?  What's 
this  going  on  ?  What's  it  all  about  ?  You  better  tell 
me,"  he  said. 

In  the  dim  light  McGregor  raised  his  fists  above 
his  head  and  talked  aloud.  "It's  creeping  in  among 
them,"  he  said.  "The  thing  that  can't  be  put  into 
words  is  getting  itself  expressed.  Something  is 


MARCHING  MEN  253 

being  done  here  in  this  field.  A  new  force  is  com 
ing  into  the  world." 

Half  beside  himself  McGregor  ran  up  and  down 
swinging  his  arms.  Again  turning  to  the  reporter 
who  stood  by  a  factory  wall — a  rather  dandified 
figure  he  was  with  a  tiny  moustache — he  shouted : 

"Don't  you  see?"  he  cried.  His  voice  was  harsh. 
"See  how  they  march !  They  are  finding  out  what  I 
mean.  They  have  caught  the  spirit  of  it!" 

McGregor  began  to  explain.  He  talked  hur 
riedly,  his  words  coming  forth  in  short  broken  sen 
tences.  "For  ages  there  has  been  talk  of  brother 
hood.  Always  men  have  babbled  of  brotherhood. 
The  words  have  meant  nothing.  The  words  and  the 
talking  have  but  bred  a  loose-jawed  race.  The  jaws 
of  men  wabble  about  but  the  legs  of  these  men  do 
not  wabble." 

He  again  walked  up  and  down,  dragging  the  half- 
frightened  man  along  the  deepening  shadow  of  the 
factory  wall. 

"You  see  it  begins — now  in  this  field  it  begins. 
The  legs  and  the  feet  of  men,  hundreds  of  legs  and 
feet  make  a  kind  of  music.  Presently  there  will  be 
thousands,  hundreds  of  thousands.  For  a  time  men 
will  cease  to  be  individuals.  They  will  become  a 
mass,  a  moving  all-powerful  mass.  They  will  not 
put  their  thoughts  into  words  but  nevertheless  there 
will  be  a  thought  growing  up  in  them.  They  will 
of  a  sudden  begin  to  realise  that  they  are  a  part  of 


254  MARCHING  MEN 

something  vast  and  mighty,  a  thing  that  moves,  that 
is  seeking  new  expression.  They  have  been  told  of 
the  power  of  labour  but  now,  you  see,  they  will  be 
come  the  power  of  labour." 

Swept  along  by  his  own  words  and  perhaps  by 
something  rhythmical  in  the  moving  mass  of  men 
McGregor  became  feverishly  anxious  that  the  dap 
per  young  man  should  understand.  "Do  you  re 
member — when  you  were  a  boy — some  man  who 
had  been  a  soldier  telling  you  that  the  men  who 
marched  had  to  break  step  and  go  in  a  disorderly 
mob  across  a  bridge  because  their  orderly  stride 
would  have  shaken  the  bridge  to  pieces?" 

A  shiver  ran  over  the  body  of  the  young  man. 
In  his  off  hours  he  was  a  writer  of  plays  and  stories 
and  his  trained  dramatic  sense  caught  quickly  the 
import  of  McGregor's  words.  Into  his  mind  came 
a  scene  on  a  village  street  of  his  own  place  in  Ohio. 
In  fancy  he  saw  the  village  fife  and  drum  corps 
marching  past.  His  mind  recalled  the  swing  and 
the  cadence  of  the  tune  and  again  as  when  he  was  a 
boy  his  legs  ached  to  run  out  among  the  men  and  go 
marching  away. 

Filled  with  excitement  he  began  also  to  talk.  "I 
see,"  he  cried;  "you  think  there  is  a  thought  in 
that,  a  big  thought  that  men  have  not  understood  ?" 

On  the  field  the  men,  becoming  bolder  as  they  be 
came  less  self-conscious,  came  sweeping  by,  their 
bodies  falling  into  a  long  swinging  stride. 


MARCHING  MEN  255 

The  young  man  pondered.  "I  see.  I  see.  Every 
one  who  stood  watching  as  I  did  when  the  fife  and 
drum  corps  went  past  felt  what  I  felt.  They  were 
hiding  behind  a  mask.  Their  legs  also  tingled  and 
the  same  wild  militant  thumping  went  on  in  their 
hearts.  You  have  found  that  out,  eh?  You  mean 
to  lead  labour  that  way?" 

With  open  mouth  the  young  man  stared  at  the 
field  and  at  the  moving  mass  of  men.  He  became 
oratorical  in  his  thoughts.  "Here  is  a  big  man,"  he 
muttered.  "Here  is  a  Napoleon,  a  Caesar  of  labour 
come  to  Chicago.  He  is  not  like  the  little  leaders. 
His  mind  is  not  sicklied  over  with  the  pale  cast  of 
thought.  He  does  not  think  that  the  big  natural  im 
pulses  of  men  are  foolish  and  absurd.  He  has  got 
hold  of  something  here  that  will  work.  The  world 
had  better  watch  this  man." 

Half  beside  himself  he  walked  up  and  down  at 
the  edge  of  the  field,  his  body  trembling. 

Out  of  the  ranks  of  the  marching  men  came  a 
workman.  In  the  field  words  arose.  A  petulant 
quality  came  into  the  voice  of  the  captain  who  gave 
commands.  The  newspaper  man  listened  anxiously. 
"That's  what  will  spoil  everything.  The  men  will 
begin  to  lose  heart  and  will  quit,"  he  thought,  lean 
ing  forward  and  waiting. 

"I've  worked  all  day  and  I  can't  march  up  and 
down  here  all  night,"  complained  the  voice  of  the 
workman. 


256  MARCHING  MEN 

Past  the  shoulder  of  the  young  man  went  a 
shadow.  Before  his  eyes  on  the  field,  fronting  the 
waiting  ranks  of  men,  stood  McGregor.  His  fist 
shot  out  and  the  complaining  workman  crumpled 
to  the  ground. 

"This  is  no  time  for  words,"  said  the  harsh  voice. 
"Get  back  in  there.  This  is  not  a  game.  It's  the 
beginning  of  men's  realisation  of  themselves.  Get 
in  there  and  say  nothing.  If  you  can't  march  with 
us  get  out.  The  movement  we  have  started  can  pay 
no  attention  to  whimperers." 

Among  the  ranks  of  men  a  cheer  arose.  By  the 
factory  wall  the  excited  newspaper  man  danced  up 
and  down.  At  a  word  of  command  from  the  cap 
tain  the  line  of  marching  men  again  swept  down 
the  field  and  he  watched  them  with  tears  standing  in 
his  eyes.  "It's  going  to  work,"  he  cried.  "It's 
bound  to  work.  At  last  a  man  has  come  to  lead  the 
men  of  labor." 


CHAPTER  II 

JOHN  VAN  MOORE  a  young  Chicago  advertising 
man  went  one  afternoon  to  the  offices  of  the  Wheel- 
right  Bicycle  Company.  The  company  had  both  its 
factory  and  offices  far  out  on  the  'west  side.  The 
factory  was  a  huge  brick  affair  fronted  by  a  broad 
cement  sidewalk  and  a  narrow  green  lawn  spotted 
with  flower  beds.  The  building  used  for  offices  was 
smaller  and  had  a  veranda  facing  the  street.  Up  the 
sides  of  the  office  building  vines  grew. 

Like  the  reporter  who  had  watched  the  March 
ing  Men  in  the  field  by  the  factory  wall  John  Van 
Moore  was  a  dapper  young  man  with  a  moustache. 
In  his  leisure  hours  he  played  a  clarinet.  "It  gives 
a  man  something  to  cling  to,"  he  explained  to  his 
friends.  "One  sees  life  going  past  and  feels  that  he 
is  not  a  mere  drifting  log  in  the  stream  of  things. 
Although  as  a  musician  I  amount  to  nothing,  it  at 
least  makes  me  dream." 

Among  the  men  in  the  advertising  office  where 
he  worked  Van  Moore  was  known  as  something  of 
a  fool,  redeemed  by  his  ability  to  string  words 
together.  He  wore  a  heavy  black  braided  watch 
chain  and  carried  a  cane  and  he  had  a  wife  who 

257 


258  MARCHING  MEN 

after  marriage  had  studied  medicine  and  with  whom 
he  did  not  live.  Sometimes  on  a  Saturday  evening 
the  two  met  at  some  restaurant  and  sat  for  hours 
drinking  and  laughing.  When  the  wife  had  gone 
to  her  own  place  the  advertising  man  continued  the 
fun,  going  from  saloon  to  saloon  and  making  long 
speeches  setting  forth  his  philosophy  of  life.  "I 
am  an  individualist,"  he  declared,  strutting  up  and 
down  and  swinging  the  cane  about.  "I  am  a  dab 
bler,  an  experimenter  if  you  will.  Before  I  die  it 
is  my  dream  that  I  will  discover  a  new  quality  in 
existence." 

For  the  bicycle  company  the  advertising  man  was 
to  write  a  booklet  telling  in  romantic  and  readable 
form  the  history  of  the  company.  When  finished 
the  booklet  would  be  sent  out  to  those  who  had  an 
swered  advertisements  put  into  magazines  and  news 
papers.  The  company  had  a  process  of  manufac 
ture  peculiar  to  Wheelright  bicycles  and  in  the  book 
let  this  was  to  be  much  emphasised. 

The  manufacturing  process  in  regard  to  which 
John  Van  Moore  was  to  wax  eloquent  had  been 
conceived  in  the  brain  of  a  workman  and  was  re 
sponsible  for  the  company's  success.  Now  the 
workman  was  dead  and  the  president  of  the  com 
pany  had  decided  that  he  would  take  credit  for  the 
idea.  He  had  thought  a  good  deal  of  the  matter 
and  had  decided  that  in  truth  the  notion  must  have 
been  more  than  a  little  his  own.  "It  must  have 


MARCHING  MEN  259 

been  so,"  he  told  himself,  "otherwise  it  would  not 
have  worked  out  so  well." 

In  the  offices  of  the  bicycle  company  the  presi 
dent,  a  grey  gross  man  with  tiny  eyes,  walked  up 
and  down  a  long  room  heavily  carpeted.  In  reply 
to  questions  asked  by  the  advertising  man,  who  sat 
at  a  table  with  a  pad  of  paper  before  him,  he  raised 
himself  on  his  toes,  put  a  thumb  in  the  armhole  of 
his  vest  and  told  a  long  rambling  tale  of  which  he 
was  the  hero. 

The  tale  concerned  a  purely  imaginary  young 
workman  who  spent  all  of  the  earlier  years  of  his 
life  labouring  terribly.  At  evening  he  ran  quickly 
from  the  shop  where  he  was  employed  and  going 
without  sleep  toiled  for  long  hours  in  a  little  garret. 
When  the  workman  had  discovered  the  secret  that 
made  successful  the  Wheelright  bicycle  he  opened  a 
shop  and  began  to  reap  the  reward  of  his  efforts. 

"That  was  me.  I  was  that  fellow,"  cried  the  fat 
man  who  in  reality  had  bought  his  interest  in  the 
bicycle  company  after  the  age  of  forty.  Tapping 
himself  on  the  breast  he  paused  as  though  overcome 
with  feeling.  Tears  came  into  his  eyes.  The  young 
workman  had  become  a  reality  to  him.  "All  day  I 
ran  about  the  little  shop  crying  'Quality !  Quality !'  I 
do  that  now.  It  is  a  fetish  with  me.  I  do  not  make 
bicycles  for  money  but  because  I  am  a  workman 
with  pride  in  my  work.  You  may  put  that  in  the 
book.  You  may  quote  me  as  saying  that.  A  big 


2<5o  MARCHING  MEN 

point  should  be  made  of  my  pride  in  my  work." 
The  advertising  man  nodded  his  head  and  scrib 
bled  upon  the  pad  of  paper.  Almost  he  could 
have  written  the  story  without  the  visit  to  the  fac 
tory.  When  the  fat  man  was  not  looking  he  turned 
his  face  to  one  side  and  listened  attentively.  With 
a  whole  heart  he  wished  the  president  would  go 
away  and  leave  him  alone  to  wander  in  the  fac 
tory. 

On  the  evening  before,  John  Van  Moore  had 
taken  part  in  an  adventure.  With  a  companion,  a 
fellow  who  drew  cartoons  for  the  daily  papers,  he 
had  gone  into  a  saloon  and  there  had  met  another 
man  of  the  newspapers. 

In  the  saloon  the  three  men  had  sat  until  late  into 
the  night  drinking  and  talking.  The  second  news 
paper  man — that  same  dapper  fellow  who  had 
watched  the  marchers  by  the  factory  wall — had  told 
over  and  over  the  story  of  McGregor  and  his 
Marchers.  "I  tell  you  there  is  something  growing 
up  here,"  he  had  said.  "I  have  seen  this  Mc 
Gregor  and  I  know.  You  may  believe  me  or  not 
but  the  fact  is  that  he  has  found  out  something. 
There  is  an  element  in  men  that  up  to  now  has  not 
been  understood — there  is  a  thought  hidden  away 
within  the  breast  of  labour,  a  big  unspoken  thought 
— it  is  a  part  of  men's  bodies  as  well  as  their  minds. 
Suppose  this  fellow  has  figured  that  out  and  under 
stands  it,  eh!" 


MARCHING  MEN  261 

Becoming  more  and  more  excited  as  he  continued 
to  drink  the  newspaper  man  had  been  half  wild  in 
his  conjectures  as  to  what  was  to  happen  in  the 
world.  Thumping  with  his  fist  upon  a  table  wet 
with  beer  he  had  addressed  the  writer  of  advertise 
ments.  "There  are  things  that  animals  know  that 
have  not  been  understood  by  men,"  he  cried.  "Con 
sider  the  bees.  Have  you  thought  that  man  has  not 
tried  to  work  out  a  collective  intellect  ?  Why  should 
man  not  try  to  work  that  out?" 

The  newspaper  man's  voice  became  low  and  tense, 
"When  you  go  into  a  factory  I  want  you  to  keep 
your  eyes  and  your  ears  open,"  he  said.  "Go  into 
one  of  the  great  rooms  where  many  men  are  at 
work.  Stand  perfectly  still.  Don't  try  to  think. 
Wait." 

Jumping  out  of  his  seat  the  excited  man  had 
walked  up  and  down  before  his  companions.  A 
group  of  men  standing  before  the  bar  listened,  their 
glasses  held  half  way  to  their  lips. 

"I  tell  you  there  is  already  a  song  of  labour.  It 
has  not  got  itself  expressed  and  understood  but  it  is 
in  every  shop,  in  every  field  where  men  work.  In  a 
dim  way  the  men  who  work  are  conscious  of  the 
song  although  if  you  talk  of  the  matter  they  only 
laugh.  The  song  is  low  harsh  rhythmical.  I  tell 
you  it  comes  out  of  the  very  soul  of  labour.  It  is 
akin  to  the  thing  that  artists  understand  and  that  is 
called  form.  This  McGregor  understands  something 


262  MARCHING  MEN 

of  that.  He  is  the  first  leader  of  labour  that  has 
understood.  The  world  shall  hear  from  him.  One 
of  these  days  the  world  shall  ring  with  his  name." 

In  the  bicycle  factory  John  Van  Moore  looked  at 
the  pad  of  paper  before  him  and  thought  of  the 
words  of  the  half  drunken  man  in  the  saloon.  In 
the  great  shop  at  his  back  there  was  the  steady 
grinding  roar  of  many  machines.  The  fat  man, 
hypnotised  by  his  own  words,  continued  to  walk  up 
and  down  telling  of  the  hardship  that  had  once  con 
fronted  the  imaginary  young  workman  and  above 
which  he  had  risen  triumphant.  "We  hear  much  of 
the  power  of  labour  but  there  has  been  a  mistake 
made,"  he  said.  "Such  men  as  myself — we  are  the 
power.  Do  you  see  we  have  come  out  of  the  mass? 
We  stand  forth." 

Stopping  before  the  advertising  man  and  looking 
down  the  fat  man  winked.  "You  do  not  need  to 
say  that  in  the  book.  There  is  no  need  of  quoting 
me  there.  Our  bicycles  are  being  bought  by  work- 
ingmen  and  it  would  be  foolish  to  offend  them  but 
what  I  say  is  nevertheless  true.  Do  not  such  men  as 
I,  with  our  cunning  brains  and  our  power  of 
patience  build  these  great  modern  organisations?" 

The  fat  man  waved  his  arm  toward  the  shops 
from  which  the  roar  of  machinery  came.  The  ad 
vertising  man  absentmindedly  nodded  his  head.  He 
was  trying  to  hear  the  song  of  labour  talked  of  by 
the  drunken  man.  It  was  quitting  time  and  there 


MARCHING  MEN  263 

was  the  sound  of  many  feet  moving  about  the  floor 
of  the  factory.  The  roar  of  the  machinery  stopped. 

Again  the  fat  man  walked  up  and  down  talking 
of  the  career  of  the  labourer  who  had  come  forth 
from  the  ranks  of  labour.  From  the  factory  the 
men  began  filing  out  into  the  open.  There  was  the 
sound  of  feet  scuffling  along  the  wide  cement  side 
walk  past  the  flowerbeds. 

Of  a  sudden  the  fat  man  stopped.  The  advertis 
ing  man  sat  with  pencil  suspended  above  the  paper. 
From  the  walk  below  sharp  commands  rang  out. 
Again  the  sound  of  men  moving  about  came  in 
through  the  windows. 

The  president  of  the  bicycle  company  and  the  ad 
vertising  man  ran  to  the  window.  There  on  the 
cement  sidewalk  stood  the  men  of  the  company 
formed  into  columns  of  fours  and  separated  into 
companies.  At  the  head  of  each  company  stood  a 
captain.  The  captains  swung  the  men  about.  "For 
ward  !  March !"  they  shouted. 

The  fat  man  stood  with  his  mouth  open  and 
looked  at  the  men.  "What's  going  on  down  there  ? 
What  do  you  mean?  Quit  that!"  he  bawled. 

A  derisive  laugh  floated  up  through  the  window. 

"Attention!  Forward,  guide  right!"  shouted  a 
captain. 

The  men  went  swinging  down  the  broad  cement 
sidewalk  past  the  window  and  the  advertising  man. 
In  their  faces  was  something  determined  and  grim. 


264  MARCHING  MEN 

A  sickly  smile  flitted  across  the  face  of  the  grey- 
haired  man  and  then  faded.  The  advertising  man, 
without  knowing  just  what  was  going  on  felt  that 
the  older  man  was  afraid.  He  sensed  the  terror 
in  his  face.  In  his  heart  he  was  glad  to  see  it. 

The  manufacturer  began  to  talk  excitedly.  "Now 
what's  this?"  he  demanded.  "What's  going  on? 
What  kind  of  a  volcano  are  we  men  of  affairs  walk 
ing  over?  Haven't  we  had  enough  trouble  with 
labour?  What  are  they  doing  now?"  Again  he 
walked  up  and  down  past  the  table  where  the  ad 
vertising  man  sat  looking  at  him.  "We'll  let  the 
book  go,"  he  said.  "Come  to-morrow.  Come  any 
time.  I  want  to  look  into  this.  I  want  to  find  out 
what's  going  on." 

Leaving  the  office  of  the  bicycle  company  John 
Van  Moore  ran  along  the  street  past  stores  and 
houses.  He  did  not  try  to  follow  the  Marching 
Men  but  ran  forward  blindly,  filled  with  excitement. 
He  remembered  the  words  of  the  newspaper  man 
about  the  song  of  labour,  and  was  drunk  with  the 
thought  that  he  had  caught  the  swing  of  it.  A  hun 
dred  times  he  had  seen  men  pouring  out  of  factory 
doors  at  the  end  of  the  day.  Always  before  they 
had  been  just  a  mass  of  individuals.  Each  had 
been  thinking  of  his  own  affairs  and  each  man  had 
shuffled  off  into  his  own  street  and  had  been  lost  in 
the  dim  alleyways  between  the  tall  grimy  buildings. 
Now  all  of  this  was  changed.  The  men  did  not 


MARCHING  MEN  265 

shuffle  off  alone  but  marched  along  the  street 
shoulder  to  shoulder. 

A  lump  came  also  into  the  throat  of  this  man  and 
he  like  that  other  by  the  factory  wall  began  to  say 
words.  "The  song  of  labour  is  here.  It  has  begun 
to  get  itself  sung!"  he  cried. 

John  Van  Moore  was  beside  himself.  The  face 
of  the  fat  man  pale  with  terror  came  back  into  his 
mind.  On  the  sidewalk  before  a  grocery  store  he 
stopped  and  shouted  with  delight.  Then  he  began 
dancing  wildly  about,  startling  a  group  of  children 
who  with  fingers  in  their  mouths  stood  with  staring 
eyes  watching. 


CHAPTER   III 

ALL  through  the  early  months  of  that  year  in 
Chicago,  rumours  of  a  new  and  not  understandable 
movement  among  labourers  ran  about  among  men 
of  affairs.  In  a  way  the  labourers  understood  the 
undercurrent  of  terror  their  marching  together  had 
inspired  and  like  the  advertising  man  dancing  on 
the  sidewalk  before  the  grocery  were  made  happy 
by  it.  Grim  satisfaction  dwelt  in  their  hearts.  Re 
membering  their  boyhoods  and  the  creeping  ter 
ror  that  invaded  their  fathers'  houses  in  times  of 
depression  they  were  glad  to  spread  terror  among 
the  homes  of  the  rich  and  the  well-to-do.  For 
years  they  had  been  going  through  life  blindly, 
striving  to  forget  age  and  poverty.  Now  they  felt 
that  life  had  a  purpose,  that  they  were  marching 
toward  some  end.  When  in  the  past  they  had  been 
told  that  power  dwelt  in  them  they  had  not  believed. 
"He  is  not  to  be  trusted,"  thought  the  man  at  the 
machine  looking  at  the  man  at  work  at  the  next 
machine.  "I  have  heard  him  talk  and  at  bottom  he 
is  a  fool." 

Now  the  man  at  the  machine  did  not  think  of  his 
brother  at  the  next  machine.  In  his  dreams  at 

266 


MARCHING  MEN  267 

night  he  was  beginning  to  have  a  new  vision. 
Power  had  breathed  its  message  into  his  brain.  Of 
a  sudden  he  saw  himself  as  a  part  of  a  giant  walk 
ing  in  the  world.  "I  am  like  a  drop  of  blood  run 
ning  through  the  veins  of  labour,"  he  whispered  to 
himself.  "In  my  own  way  I  am  adding  strength 
to  the  heart  and  the  brain  of  labour.  I  have  become 
a  part  of  this  thing  that  has  begun  to  move.  I  will 
not  talk  but  will  wait.  If  this  marching  is  the  thing 
then  I  will  march.  Though  I  am  weary  at  the  end 
of  the  day  that  shall  not  stop  me.  Many  times  I 
have  been  weary  and  was  alone.  Now  I  am  a  part 
of  something  vast.  This  I  know,  that  a  conscious 
ness  of  power  has  crept  into  my  brain  and  although 
I  be  persecuted  I  shall  not  surrender  what  I  have 
gained." 

In  the  offices  of  the  plough  trust  a  meeting  of 
men  of  affairs  was  called.  The  purpose  of  the  meet 
ing  was  to  discuss  the  movement  going  on  among 
the  workers.  At  the  plough  works  it  had  broken 
out.  No  more  at  evening  did  the  men  shuffle  along, 
like  a  disorderly  mob  but  marched  in  companies 
along  the  brick-paved  street  that  ran  by  the  factory 
door. 

At  the  meeting  David  Ormsby  had  been  as  al 
ways  quiet  and  self-possessed.  A  halo  of  kindly 
intent  hung  over  him  and  when  a  banker,  one  of  the 
directors  of  the  company,  had  finished  a  speech  he 
arose  and  walked  up  and  down,  his  hands  thrust 


268  MARCHING  MEN 

into  his  trousers  pockets.  The  banker  was  a  fat 
man  with  thin  brown  hair  and  delicate  hands.  As 
he  talked  he  held  a  pair  of  yellow  gloves  and  beat 
with  them  on  a  long  table  at  the  centre  of  the  room. 
The  soft  thump  of  the  gloves  upon  the  table  made  a 
chorus  to  the  things  he  had  to  say.  David  motioned 
for  him  to  be  seated.  "I  will  myself  go  to  see  this 
McGregor,"  he  said,  walking  across  the  room  and 
putting  an  arm  about  the  shoulder  of  the  banker. 
"Perhaps  there  is  as  you  say  a  new  and  terrible 
danger  here  but  I  do  not  think  so.  For  thousands, 
no  doubt  for  millions  of  years,  the  world  has  gone 
on  its  way  and  I  do  not  think  it  is  to  be  stopped 
now. 

"It  has  been  my  fortune  to  see  and  to  know  this 
McGregor,"  added  David  smiling  at  the  others  in 
the  room.  "He  is  a  man  and  not  a  Joshua  to  make 
the  sun  stand  still" 

In  the  office  in  Van  Buren  Street,  David,  the  grey 
and  confident,  stood  before  the  desk  at  which  sat 
McGregor.  "We  will  get  out  of  here  if  you  do  not 
mind,"  he  said.  "I  want  to  talk  to  you  and  I  would 
not  like  being  interrupted.  I  have  a  fancy  that  we 
talk  out  of  doors." 

The  two  men  went  in  a  street  car  to  Jackson  Park 
and,  forgetting  to  dine,  walked  for  an  hour  along1 
the  paths  under  the  trees.  The  wind  from  the  lake 
had  chilled  the  air  and  the  park  was  deserted. 


MARCHING  MEN  269 

They  went  to  stand  on  a  pier  that  ran  out  into  the 
lake.  On  the  pier  David  tried  to  begin  the  talk  that 
was  the  object  of  their  being  together  but  felt  that 
the  wind  and  the  water  that  beat  against  the  piling 
of  the  pier  made  talk  too  difficult.  Although  he 
could  not  have  told  why,  he  was  relieved  by  the 
necessity  of  delay.  Int6  the  park  they  went  again 
and  found  a  seat  upon  a  bench  facing  a  lagoon. 

In  the  presence  of  the  silent  McGregor  David 
felt  suddenly  embarrassed  and  awkward.  "By  what 
right  do  I  question  him?"  he  asked  himself  and  in 
his  mind  could  find  no  answer.  A  half  dozen  times 
he  started  to  say  what  he  had  come  to  say  but 
stopped  and  his  talk  ran  off  into  trivialities.  "There 
are  men  in  the  world  you  have  not  taken  into  con 
sideration,"  he  said  finally,  forcing  himself  to  begin. 
With  a  laugh  he  went  on,  relieved  that  the  silence 
had  been  broken.  "You  see  the  very  inner  secret 
of  strong  men  has  been  missed  by  you  and  others." 

David  Ormsby  looked  sharply  at  McGregor.  "I 
do  not  believe  that  you  believe  we  are  after  money, 
we  men  of  affairs.  I  trust  you  see  beyond  that. 
We  have  our  purpose  and  we  keep  to  our  purpose 
quietly  and  doggedly." 

Again  David  looked  at  the  silent  figure  sitting  in 
the  dim  light  and  again  his  mind  ran  out,  striving  to 
penetrate  the  silence.  "I  am  not  a  fool  and  perhaps 
I  know  that  the  movement  you  have  started  among 
the  workers  is  something  new.  There  is  power  in 


270  MARCHING  MEN 

it  as  in  all  great  ideas.  Perhaps  I  think  there  is 
power  in  you.  Why  else  should  I  be  here?" 

Again  David  laughed  uncertainly.  "In  a  way  I 
am  in  sympathy  with  you,"  he  said.  "Although  all 
through  my  life  I  have  served  money  I  have  not 
been  owned  by  it.  You  are  not  to  suppose  that  men 
like  me  have  not  something  beyond  money  in  mind." 

The  old  plough  maker  looked  away  over  Mc 
Gregor's  shoulder  to  where  the  leaves  of  the  trees 
shook  in  the  wind  from  the  lake.  "There  have  been 
men  and  great  leaders  who  have  understood  the 
silent  competent  servants  of  wealth,"  he  said  half 
petulantly.  "I  want  you  to  understand  these  men. 
I  should  like  to  see  you  become  such  a  one  yourself 
— not  for  the  wealth  it  would  bring  but  because  in 
the  end  you  would  thus  serve  all  men.  You  would 
get  at  truth  thus.  The  power  that  is  in  you  would 
be  conserved  and  used  more  intelligently." 

"To  be  sure,  history  has  taken  little  or  no  account 
of  the  men  of  whom  I  speak.  They  have  passed 
through  life  unnoticed,  doing  great  work  quietly." 

The  plough  maker  paused.  Although  McGregor 
had  said  nothing  the  older  man  felt  that  the  inter 
view  was  not  going  as  it  should.  "I  should  like  to 
know  what  you  have  in  mind,  what  in  the  end  you 
hope  to  gain  for  yourself  or  for  these  men,"  he 
said  somewhat  sharply.  "There  is  after  all  no  point 
to  our  beating  about  the  bush." 

McGregor  said  nothing.    Arising  from  the  bench 


MARCHING  MEN  271 

he  began  again  to  walk  along  the  path  with  Ormsby 
at  his  side. 

"The  really  strong  men  of  the  world  have  had  no 
place  in  history,"  declared  Ormsby  bitterly.  "They 
have  not  asked  that.  They  were  in  Rome  and  in 
Germany  in  the  time  of  Martin  Luther  but  nothing 
is  said  of  them.  Although  they  do  not  mind  the 
silence  of  history  they  would  like  other  strong  men 
to  understand.  The  march  of  the  world  is  a  greater 
thing  than  the  dust  raised  by  the  heels  of  some  few 
workers  walking  through  the  streets  and  these  men 
are  responsible  for  the  march  of  the  world.  You 
are  making  a  mistake.  I  invite  you  to  become  one 
of  us.  If  you  plan  to  upset  things  you  may  get 
yourself  into  history  but  you  will  not  really  count. 
What  you  are  trying  to  do  will  not  work.  You  will 
come  to  a  bad  end." 

When  the  two  men  emerged  from  the  park  the 
older  man  had  again  the  feeling  that  the  interview 
had  not  been  a  success.  He  was  sorry.  The  eve 
ning  he  felt  had  marked  for  him  a  failure  and  he 
was  not  accustomed  to  failures.  "There  is  a  wall 
here  that  I  cannot  penetrate,"  he  thought. 

Along  the  front  of  the  park  beneath  a  grove  of 
trees  they  walked  in  silence.  McGregor  seemed  not 
to  have  heard  the  words  addressed  to  him.  When 
they  came  to  where  a  long  row  of  vacant  lots  faced 
the  park  he  stopped  and  stood  leaning  against  a  tree 
to  look  away  into  the  park,  lost  in  thought. 


272  MARCHING  MEN 

David  Ormsby  also  became  silent.  He  thought 
of  his  youth  in  the  little  village  plough  factory,  of 
his  efforts  to  get  on  in  the  world,  of  the  long  eve 
nings  spent  reading  books  and  trying  to  understand 
the  movements  of  men. 

"Is  there  an  element  in  nature  and  in  youth  that 
we  do  not  understand  or  that  we  lose  sight  of  ?"  he 
asked.  "Are  the  efforts  of  the  patient  workers  of 
the  world  always  to  be  abortive?  Can  some  new 
phase  of  life  arise  suddenly  upsetting  all  of  our 
plans?  Do  you,  can  you,  think  of  men  like  me  as 
but  part  of  a  vast  whole?  Do  you  deny  to  us  in 
dividuality,  the  right  to  stand  forth,  the  right  to 
work  things  out  and  to  control  ?" 

The  ploughmaker  looked  at  the  huge  figure  stand 
ing  beside  the  tree.  Again  he  was  irritated  and  kept 
lighting  cigars  which  after  two  or  three  puffs  he 
threw  away.  In  the  bushes  at  the  back  of  the  bench 
insects  began  to  sing.  The  wind  coming  now  in 
gentle  gusts  swayed  slowly  the  branches  of  the  trees 
overhead. 

"Is  there  an  eternal  youth  in  the  world,  a  state 
out  of  which  men  pass  unknowingly,  a  youth  that 
forever  destroys,  tearing  down  what  has  been 
built?"  he  asked.  "Are  the  mature  lives  of  strong 
men  of  so  little  account?  Have  you  like  the  empty 
fields  that  bask  in  the  sun  in  the  summer  the  right 
to  remain  silent  in  the  presence  of  men  who  have 


MARCHING  MEN  273 

had  thoughts  and  have  tried  to  put  their  thoughts 
into  deeds?" 

Still  saying  nothing  McGregor  pointed  with  his 
finger  along  the  road  that  faced  the  park.  From  a 
side  street  a  body  of  men  swung  about  a  corner, 
coming  with  long  strides  toward  the  two.  As  they 
passed  beneath  a  street  lamp  that  swung  gently  in 
the  wind  their  faces  flashing  in  and  out  of  the  light 
seemed  to  be  mocking  David  Ormsby.  For  a  mo 
ment  anger  burned  in  him  and  then  something,  per 
haps  the  rhythm  of  the  moving  mass  of  men, 
brought  a  gentler  mood.  The  men  swinging  past 
turned  another  corner  and  disappeared  beneath  the 
structure  of  an  elevated  railroad. 

The  ploughmaker  walked  away  from  McGregor. 
Something  in  the  interview,  terminating  thus  with 
the  presence  of  the  marching  figures  had  he  felt 
unmanned  him.  "After  all  there  is  youth  and  the 
hope  of  youth.  What  he  has  in  mind  may  work," 
he  thought  as  he  climbed  aboard  a  street  car. 

In  the  car  David  put  his  head  out  at  the  window 
and  looked  at  the  long  line  of  apartment  buildings 
that  lined  the  streets.  He  thought  again  of  his 
own  youth  and  of  the  evenings  in  the  Wisconsin 
village  when,  himself  a  youth,  he  went  with  other 
young  men  singing  and  marching  in  the  moonlight. 

In  a  vacant  lot  he  again  saw  a  body  of  the  March 
ing  Men  moving  back  and  forth  and  responding 
quickly  to  the  commands  given  by  a  slender  young 


274  MARCHING  MEN 

man  who  stood  on  the  sidewalk  beneath  a  street 
lamp  and  held  a  stick  in  his  hand. 

In  the  car  the  grey-haired  man  of  affairs  put  his 
head  down  upon  the  back  of  the  seat  in  front.  Half 
unconscious  of  his  own  thoughts  his  mind  began  to 
dwell  upon  the  figure  of  his  daughter.  "Had  I  been 
Margaret  I  should  not  have  let  him  go.  No  matter 
what  the  cost  I  should  have  clung  to  the  man,"  he 
muttered. 


CHAPTER   IV 

IT  is  difficult  not  to  be  of  two  minds  about  the 
manifestation  now  called,  and  perhaps  rightly,  "The 
Madness  of  the  Marching  Men."  In  one  mood  it 
comes  back  to  the  mind  as  something  unspeakably 
big  and  inspiring.  We  go  each  of  us  through  the 
treadmill  of  our  lives  caught  and  caged  like  little 
animals  in  some  vast  menagerie.  In  turn  we  love, 
marry,  breed  children,  have  our  moments  of  blind 
futile  passion  and  then  something  happens.  All 
unconsciously  a  change  creeps  over  us.  Youth 
passes.  We  become  shrewd,  careful,  submerged  in 
little  things.  Life,  art,  great  passions,  dreams,  all 
of  these  pass.  Under  the  night  sky  the  suburbanite 
stands  in  the  moonlight.  He  is  hoeing  his  radishes 
and  worrying  because  the  laundry  has  torn  one  of 
his  white  collars.  The  railroad  is  to  put  on  an  extra 
morning  train.  He  remembers  that  fact  heard  at 
the  store.  For  him  the  night  becomes  more  beauti 
ful.  For  ten  minutes  longer  he  can  stay  with  the 
radishes  each  morning.  There  is  much  of  man's 
life  in  the  figure  of  the  suburbanite  standing  ab 
sorbed  in  his  own  thoughts  in  the  midst  of  his  rad 
ishes. 

And  so  about  the  business  of  our  lives  we  go  and 
275 


276  MARCHING  MEN 

then  of  a  sudden  there  comes  again  the  feeling  that 
crept  over  us  all  in  the  year  of  the  Marching  Men. 
In  a  moment  we  are  again  a  part  of  the  moving 
mass.  The  old  religious  exaltation,  strange  emana 
tion  from  the  man  McGregor,  returns.  In  fancy  we 
feel  the  earth  tremble  under  the  feet  of  the  men — 
the  marchers.  With  a  conscious  straining  of  the 
mind  we  strive  to  grasp  the  processes  of  the  mind  of 
the  leader  during  that  year  when  men  sensed  his 
meaning,  when  they  saw  as  he  saw  the  workers — 
saw  them  massed  and  moving  through  the  world. 

My  own  mind,  striving  feebly  to  follow  that 
greater  and  simpler  mind,  gropes  about.  I  remem 
ber  sharply  the  words  of  a  writer  who  said  that  men 
make  their  own  gods  and  realise  that  I  myself  saw 
something  of  the  birth  of  such  a  god.  For  he  was 
near  to  being  a  god  then — our  McGregor.  The 
thing  he  did  rumbles  in  the  minds  of  men  yet.  His 
long  shadow  will  fall  across  men's  thoughts  for 
ages.  The  tantalising  effort  to  understand  his 
meaning  will  tempt  us  always  into  endless  specu 
lation. 

Only  last  week  I  met  a  man — he  was  a  steward 
in  a  club  and  lingered  talking  to  me  by  a  cigar  case 
in  an  empty  billiard-room — who  suddenly  turned 
away  to  conceal  from  me  two  large  tears  that  had 
jumped  into  his  eyes  because  of  a  kind  of  tender 
ness  in  my  voice  at  the  mention  of  the  Marching 
Men. 


MARCHING  MEN  277 

Another  mood  comes.  It  may  be  the  right  mood. 
I  see  sparrows  jumping  about  in  an  ordinary  road 
way  as  I  walk  to  my  office.  From  the  maple  trees 
the  little  winged  seeds  come  fluttering  down  before 
my  eyes.  A  boy  goes  past  sitting  in  a  grocery 
wagon  and  over-driving  a  rather  bony  horse.  As  I 
walk  I  overtake  two  workmen  shuffling  along.  They 
remind  me  of  those  other  workers  and  I  say  to  my 
self  that  thus  men  have  always  shuffled,  that  never 
did  they  swing  forward  into  that  world-wide  rhyth 
mical  march  of  the  workers. 

"You  were  drunk  with  youth  and  a  kind  of  world 
madness,"  says  my  normal  self  as  I  go  forward 
again,  striving  to  think  things  out. 

Chicago  is  still  here — Chicago  after  McGregor 
and  the  Marching  Men.  The  elevated  trains  still 
clatter  over  the  frogs  at  the  turning  into  Wabash 
Avenue;  the  surface  cars  clang  their  bells;  the 
crowds  pour  up  in  the  morning  from  the  runway 
leading  to  the  Illinois  Central  trains;  life  goes  on. 
And  men  in  their  offices  sit  in  their  chairs  and  say 
that  the  thing  that  happened  was  abortive,  a  brain 
storm,  a  wild  outbreak  of  the  rebellious  the  dis 
orderly  and  the  hunger  in  the  minds  of  men. 

What  begging  of  the  question.  The  very  soul 
of  the  Marching  Men  was  a  sense  of  order.  That 
was  the  message  of  it,  the  thing  that  the  world  has 
not  come  up  to  yet.  Men  have  not  learned  that  we 
must  come  to  understand  the  impulse  toward  order, 


278  MARCHING  MEN 

have  that  burned  into  our  consciousness,  before  we 
move  on  to  other  things.  There  is  in  us  this  mad 
ness  for  individual  expression.  For  each  of  us  the 
little  moment  of  running  forward  and  lifting  our 
thin  childish  voices  in  the  midst  of  the  great  silence. 
We  have  not  learned  that  out  of  us  all,  walking 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  there  might  arise  a  greater 
voice,  something  to  make  the  waters  of  the  very 
seas  to  tremble. 

McGregor  knew.  He  had  a  mind  not  sick  with 
much  thinking  of  trifles.  When  he  had  a  great  idea 
he  thought  it  would  work  and  he  meant  to  see  that 
it  did  work. 

Mightily  was  he  equipped.  I  have  seen  the  man 
in  halls  talking,  his  huge  body  swaying  back  and 
forth,  his  great  fists  in  the  air,  his  voice  harsh,  per 
sistent,  insistent — with  something  of  the  quality  of 
the  drums  in  it — beating  down  into  the  upturned 
faces  of  the  men  crowded  into  the  stuffy  little  places. 

I  remember  that  newspaper  men  used  to  sit  in 
their  little  holes  and  write  saying  of  him  that  the 
times  made  McGregor.  I  do  not  know  about  that. 
The  city  caught  fire  from  the  man  at  the  time  of 
that  terrible  speech  of  his  in  the  court  room  when 
Polk  Street  Mary  grew  afraid  and  told  the  truth. 
There  he  stood,  the  raw  untried  red-haired  miner 
from  the  mines  and  the  Tenderloin,  facing  an  angry 
court  and  a  swarm  of  protesting  lawyers  and  utter 
ing  that  city-shaking  philippic  against  the  old  rotten 


MARCHING  MEN  279 

first  ward  and  the  creeping  cowardice  in  men  that 
lets  vice  and  disease  go  on  and  pervade  all  modern 
life.  It  was  in  a  way  another  "J' Accuse !"  from  the 
lips  of  another  Zola.  Men  who  heard  it  have  told 
me  that  when  he  had  finished  in  the  whole  court  no 
man  spoke  and  no  man  dared  feel  guiltless.  "For 
the  moment  something — a  section,  a  cell,  a  figment, 
of  men's  brains  opened — and  in  that  terrible  illumi 
nating  instant  they  saw  themselves  as  they  were  and 
what  they  had  let  life  become." 

They  saw  something  else,  or  thought  they  did, 
saw  McGregor  a  new  force  for  Chicago  to  reckon 
with.  After  the  trial  one  young  newspaper  man 
returned  to  his  office  and  running  from  desk  to  desk 
yelled  in  the  faces  of  his  brother  reporters :  "Hell's 
out  for  noon.  We've  got  a  big  red-haired  Scotch 
lawyer  up  here  on  Van  Buren  Street  that  is  a  kind 
of  a  new  scourge  of  the  world.  Watch  the  First 
Ward  get  it." 

But  McGregor  never  looked  at  the  First  Ward. 
That  wasn't  bothering  him.  From  the  court  room 
he  went  to  march  with  men  in  a  new  field. 

Followed  the  time  of  waiting  and  of  patient  quiet 
work.  In  the  evenings  McGregor  worked  at  the  law 
cases  in  the  bare  room  in  Van  Buren  Street.  That 
queer  bird  Henry  Hunt  still  stayed  with  him,  col 
lecting  tithes  for  the  gang  and  going  to  his  respect 
able  home  at  night — a  strange  triumph  of  the  small 
that  had  escaped  the  tongue  of  McGregor  on  that 


280  MARCHING  MEN 

day  in  court  when  so  many  men  had  their  names 
bruited  to  the  world  in  McGregor's  roll  call — the 
roll  call  of  the  men  who  were  but  merchants, 
brothers  of  vice,  the  men  who  should  have  been 
masters  in  the  city. 

And  then  the  movement  of  the  Marching  Men 
began  to  come  to  the  surface.  It  got  into  the  blood 
of  men.  That  harsh  drumming  voice  began  to 
shake  their  hearts  and  their  legs. 

Everywhere  men  began  to  see  and  hear  of  the 
Marchers.  From  lip  to  lip  ran  the  question, 
"What's  going  on?" 

"What's  going  on?"  How  that  cry  ran  over  Chi 
cago.  Every  newspaper  man  in  town  got  assign 
ments  on  the  story.  The  papers  were  loaded  with 
it  every  day.  All  over  the  city  they  appeared, 
everywhere — the  Marching  Men. 

There  were  leaders  enough!  The  Cuban  War 
and  the  State  Militia  had  taught  too  many  men  the 
swing  of  the  march  step  for  there  not  to  be  at  least 
two  or  three  competent  drill  masters  in  every  little 
company  of  men. 

And  there  was  the  marching  song  the  Russian 
wrote  for  McGregor.  Who  could  forget  it?  Its 
high  pitched  harsh  feminine  strain  rang  in  the 
brain.  How  it  went  pitching  and  tumbling  along  in 
that  wailing  calling  endless  high  note.  It  had 
strange  breaks  and  intervals  in  the  rendering.  The 
men  did  not  sing  it.  They  chanted  it.  There  was 


MARCHING  MEN  281 

in  it  just  the  weird  haunting  something  the  Rus 
sians  know  how  to  put  into  their  songs  and  into 
the  books  they  write.  It  isn't  the  quality  of  the 
soil.  Some  of  our  own  music  has  that  But  in  this 
Russian  song  there  was  something  else,  something 
world-wide  and  religious — a  soul,  a  spirit.  Per 
haps  it  is  just  the  spirit  that  broods  over  that 
strange  land  and  people.  There  was  something  of 
Russia  in  McGregor  himself. 

Anyway  the  marching  song  was  the  most  per 
sistently  penetrating  thing  Americans  had  ever 
heard.  It  was  in  the  streets,  the  shops,  the  offices, 
the  alleys  and  in  the  air  overhead — the  wail — half 
shout.  No  noise  could  drown  it.  It  swung  and 
pitched  and  rioted  through  the  air. 

And  there  was  the  fellow  who  wrote  the  music 
down  for  McGregor.  He  was  the  real  thing  and  he 
bore  the  marks  of  the  shackles  on  his  legs.  He  had 
remembered  the  march  from  hearing  the  men  sing  it 
as  they  went  over  the  Steppes  to  Siberia,  the  men 
who  were  going  up  out  of  misery  to  more  misery. 
"It  would  come  out  of  the  air,"  he  explained.  "The 
guards  would  run  down  the  line  of  men  to  shout 
and  strike  out  with  their  short  whips.  'Stop  it!' 
they  cried.  And  still  it  went  on  for  hours,  defying 
everything,  there  on  the  cold  cheerless  plains." 

And  he  had  brought  rit  to  America  and  put  it  to 
music  for  McQregor's  marchers. 

Of  course  the  police  tried  to  stop  the  marchers. 


282  MARCHING  MEN 

Into  a  street  they  would  run  crying  "Disperse!" 
The  men  did  disperse  only  to  appear  again  on  some 
vacant  lot  working  away  at  the  perfection  of  the 
marching.  Once  an  excited  squad  of  police  cap 
tured  a  company  of  them.  The  same  men  were 
back  in  line  the  next  evening.  The  police  could  not 
arrest  a  hundred  thousand  men  because  they 
marched  shoulder  to  shoulder  along  the  streets  and 
chanted  a  weird  march  song  as  they  went. 

The  whole  thing  was  not  an  outbreak  of  labour. 
It  was  something  different  from  anything  that  had 
come  into  the  world  before.  The  unions  were  in  it 
but  besides  the  unions  there  were  the  Poles,  the 
Russian  Jews,  the  Hunks  from  the  stockyards  and 
the  steel  works  in  South  Chicago.  They  had  their 
own  leaders,  speaking  their  own  languages.  And 
how  they  could  throw  their  legs  into  the  march! 
The  armies  of  the  old  world  had  for  years  been 
training  men  for  the  strange  demonstration  that  had 
broken  out  in  Chicago. 

The  thing  was  hypnotic.  It  was  big.  It  is  ab 
surd  to  sit  writing  of  it  now  in  such  majestic  terms 
but  you  have  to  go  back  to  the  newspapers  of  that 
day  to  realise  how  the  imagination  of  men  was 
caught  and  held. 

Every  train  brought  writers  tumbling  into  Chi 
cago.  In  the  evening  fifty  of  them  would  gather 
in  the  back  room  at  Weingardner's  restaurant  where 
such  men  congregate. 


MARCHING  MEN  283 

And  then  the  thing  broke  out  all  over  the  country, 
in  steel  towns  like  Pittsburgh  and  Johnstown  and 
Lorain  and  McKeesport  and  men  working  in  little 
independent  factories  in  towns  down  in  Indiana 
began  drilling  and  chanting  the  march  song  on  sum 
mer  evenings  on  the  village  baseball  ground. 

How  the  people,  the  comfortable  well-fed  middle 
class  people  were  afraid !  It  swept  over  the  country 
like  a  religious  revival,  the  creeping  dread. 

The  writing  men  got  to  McGregor,  the  brain  back 
of  it  all,  fast  enough.  Everywhere  his  influence  ap 
peared.  In  the  afternoon  there  would  be  a  hundred 
newspaper  men  standing  on  the  stairway  leading  up 
to  the  big  bare  office  in  Van  Buren  Street.  At  his 
desk  he  sat,  big  and  red  and  silent.  He  looked  like 
a  man  half  asleep.  I  suppose  the  thing  that  was  in 
their  minds  had  something  to  do  with  the  way  men 
looked  at  him  but  in  any  case  the  crowd  in  Wein- 
gajdner's  agreed  that  there  was  in  the  man  some 
thing  of  the  same  fear-inspiring  bigness  there  was 
in  the  movement  he  had  started  and  was  guiding. 

It  seems  absurdly  simple  now.  There  he  sat  at 
his  desk.  The  police  might  have  walked  in  and 
arrested  him.  But  if  you  begin  figuring  that  way 
the  whole  thing  was  absurd.  What  differs  it  if  men 
march  coming  from  work,  swinging  along  shoulder 
to  shoulder  or  shuffle  aimlessly  along,  and  what 
harm  can  come  out  of  the  singing  of  a  song? 

You  see  McGregor  understood  something  that  all 


284  MARCHING  MEN 

of  us  had  not  counted  on.  He  knew  that  every  one 
has  an  imagination.  He  was  at  war  with  men's 
minds.  He  challenged  something  in  us  that  we 
hardly  realised  was  there.  He  had  been  sitting 
there  for  years  thinking  it  out.  He  had  watched 
Dr.  Dowie  and  Mrs.  Eddy.  He  knew  what  he  was 
doing. 

A  crowd  of  newspaper  men  went  one  night  to 
hear  McGregor  at  a  big  outdoor  meeting  up  on  the 
North  Side.  Dr.  Cowell  was  with  them — the  big 
English  statesman  and  writer  who  later  was 
drowned  on  the  Titanic.  He  was  a  big  man,  physi 
cally  and  mentally,  and  was  in  Chicago  to  see  Mc 
Gregor  and  try  to  understand  what  he  was  doing. 

And  McGregor  got  him  as  he  had  all  men.  Out 
there  under  the  sky  the  men  stood  silent,  Orwell's 
head  sticking  up  above  the  sea  of  faces,  and  Mc 
Gregor  talked.  The  newspaper  men  declared  he 
could  not  talk.  They  were  wrong  about  that.  Mc 
Gregor  had  a  way  of  throwing  up  his  arms  and 
straining  and  shouting  out  his  sentences,  that  got  to 
the  souls  of  men. 

He  was  a  kind  of  crude  artist  drawing  pictures 
on  the  mind. 

That  night  he  talked  about  labour  as  always — 
labour  personified — huge  crude  old  Labour.  How 
he  made  the  men  before  him  see  and  feel  the  blind 
giant  who  has  lived  in  the  world  since  time  began 
and  who  still  goes  stumbling  blindly  about,  rubbing 


MARCHING  MEN  285 

his  eyes  and  lying  down  to  sleep  away  centuries  in 
the  dust  of  the  fields  and  the  factories. 

A  man  arose  in  the  audience  and  climbed  upon 
the  platform  beside  McGregor.  It  was  a  daring 
thing  to  do  and  men's  knees  trembled.  While  the 
man  was  crawling  up  to  the  platform  shouts  arose. 
One  has  in  mind  a  picture  of  a  bustling  little  fellow 
going  into  the  house  and  into  the  upper  room  where 
Jesus  and  his  followers  were  having  the  last  supper 
together,  going  in  there  to  wrangle  about  the  price 
to  be  paid  for  the  wine. 

The  man  who  got  on  the  platform  with  McGregor 
was  a  socialist.  He  wanted  to  argue. 

But  McGregor  did  not  argue  with  him.  He 
sprang  forward,  it  was  a  quick  tiger-like  movement, 
and  spun  the  socialist  about,  making  him  stand 
small  and  blinking  and  comical  before  the  crowd. 

Then  McGregor  began  to  talk.  He  made  of  the 
little  stuttering  arguing  socialist  a  figure  represent-, 
ing  all  labour,  made  him  the  personification  of  the 
old  weary  struggle  of  the  world.  And  the  socialist 
who  went  to  argue  stood  with  tears  in  his  eyes, 
proud  of  his  position  in  men's  eyes. 

All  over  the  city  McGregor  talked  of  old  Labour 
and  how  he  was  to  be  built  up  and  put  before  men's 
eyes  by  the  movement  of  the  Marching  Men.  How 
our  legs  tingled  to  fall  in  step  and  go  marching 
away  with  him. 


286  MARCHING  MEN 

Out  of  the  crowds  there  came  the  note  of  that 
wailing  march.  Some  one  always  started  that. 

That  night  on  the  North  Side  Doctor  Cowell  got 
hold  of  the  shoulder  of  a  newspaper  man  and  led 
him  to  a  car.  He  who  knew  Bismarck  and  who 
had  sat  in  council  with  kings  went  walking  and 
babbling  half  the  night  through  the  empty  streets. 

It  is  amusing  now  to  think  of  the  things  men  said 
under  the  influence  of  McGregor.  Like  old  Doctor 
Johnson  and  his  friend  Savage  they  walked  half 
drunk  through  the  streets  swearing  that  whatever 
happened  they  would  stick  to  the  movement.  Doc 
tor  Cowell  himself  said  things  just  as  absurd  as 
that. 

And  all  over  the  country  men  were  getting  the 
idea — the  Marching  Men — old  Labour  in  one  mass 
marching  before  the  eyes  of  men — old  Labour  that 
was  going  to  make  the  world  see — see  and  feel  its 
bigness  at  last.  Men  were  to  come  to  the  end  of 
strife — men  united — Marching!  Marching!  March 
ing! 


CHAPTER   V 

IN  all  of  the  time  of  The  Marching  Men  there 
was  but  one  bit  of  written  matter  from  the  leader 
McGregor.  It  had  a  circulation  running  into  the 
millions  and  was  printed  in  every  tongue  spoken  in 
America.  A  copy  of  the  little  circular  lies  before 
me  now. 

THE  MARCHERS 

"They  ask  us  what  we  mean. 
Well,  here  is  our  answer. 
We  mean  to  go  on  marching. 

We  mean  to  march  in  the  morning  and  in  the  eve 
ning  when  the  sun  goes  down. 
On  Sundays  they  may  sit  on  their  porches  or  shout 

at  men  playing  ball  in  a  field 
But  we  will  march. 
On  the  hard  cobblestones  of  the  city  streets  and 

through  the  dust  of  country  roads  we  will 

march. 

Our  legs  may  be  weary  and  our  throats  hot  and  dry, 
But  still  we  will  march,  shoulder  to  shoulder. 
We  will  march  until  the  ground  shakes  and  tall 

buildings  tremble. 

287 


288  MARCHING  MEN 

Shoulder  to  shoulder  we  will  go — all  of  us — 

On  and  on  forever. 

We  will  not  talk  nor  listen  to  talk. 

We  will  march  and  we  will  teach  our  sons  and  our 

daughters  to  march. 

Their  minds  are  troubled.    Our  minds  are  clear. 
We  do  not  think  and  banter  words. 
We  march. 
Our  faces  are  coarse  and  there  is  dust  in  our  hair 

and  beards. 

See,  the  inner  parts  of  our  hands  are  rough. 
And  still  we  march — we  the  workers." 


CHAPTER   VI 

WHO  will  ever  forget  that  Labour  Day  in  Chi 
cago?  How  they  marched! — thousands  and  thou 
sands  and  more  thousands !  They  filled  the  streets. 
The  cars  stopped.  Men  trembled  with  the  import 
of  the  impending  hour. 

Here  they  come!  How  the  ground  trembles! 
The  chant  chant  chant  of  that  song !  It  must  have 
been  thus  that  Grant  felt  at  the  great  review  of  the 
veterans  in  Washington  when  all  day  long  they 
marched  past  him,  the  men  of  the  Civil  War,  the 
whites  of  their  eyes  showing  in  the  tan  of  their 
faces.  McGregor  stood  on  the  stone  curbing  above 
the  tracks  in  Grant  Park.  As  the  men  marched  they 
massed  in  there  about  him,  thousands  of  them,  steel 
workers  and  iron  workers  and  great  red-necked 
butchers  and  teamsters. 

And  in  the  air  wailed  the  marching  song  of  the 
workers. 

All  of  the  world  that  was  not  marching  jammed 
into  the  buildings  facing  Michigan  Boulevard  and 
waited.  Margaret  Ormsby  was  there.  She  sat  with 
her  father  in  a  carriage  near  where  Van  Buren 
Street  ends  at  the  Boulevard.  As  the  men  kept 

289 


290  MARCHING  MEN 

crowding  in  about  them  she  clutched  nervously  at 
the  sleeve  of  David  Ormsby's  coat.  "He  is  going 
to  speak,"  she  whispered  and  pointed.  Her  tense 
air  of  expectancy  expressed  much  of  the  feeling  of 
the  crowd.  "See,  listen,  he  is  going  to  speak  out." 
It  must  have  been  five  in  the  afternoon  when  the 
men  got  through  marching.  They  were  massed  in 
there  clear  down  to  the  Twelfth  Street  Station  of 
the  Illinois  Central.  McGregor  lifted  his  hands. 
In  the  hush  his  harsh  voice  carried  far.  "We  are 
at  the  beginning,"  he  shouted  and  silence  fell  upon 
the  people.  In  the  stillness  one  standing  near  her 
might  have  heard  Margaret  Ormsby  weeping  softly. 
There  was  the  gentle  murmur  that  always  prevails 
where  many  people  stand  at  attention.  The  weep 
ing  of  the  woman  was  scarcely  audible  but  it  per 
sisted  like  the  sound  of  little  waves  on  a  beach  at 
the  end  of  the  day. 


BOOK  VII 


CHAPTER   I 

THE  idea  prevalent  among  men  that  the  woman 
to  be  beautiful  must  be  hedged  about  and  protected 
from  the  facts  of  life  has  done  something  more  than 
produce  a  race  of  women  not  physically  vigorous. 
It  has  made  them  deficient  in  strength  of  soul  also. 
After  the  evening  when  she  stood  facing  Edith  and 
when  she  had  been  unable  to  arise  to  the  challenge 
flung  at  her  by  the  little  milliner  Margaret  Ormsby 
was  forced  to  stand  facing  her  own  soul  and  there 
was  no  strength  in  her  for  the  test.  Her  mind  in 
sisted  on  justifying  her  failure.  A  woman  of  the 
people  placed  in  such  a  position  would  have  been 
able  to  face  it  calmly.  She  would  have  gone  soberly 
and  steadily  about  her  work  and  after  a  few  months 
of  pulling  weeds  in  a  field,  trimming  hats  in  a  shop 
or  instructing  children  in  a  schoolroom  would 
have  been  ready  to  thrust  out  again,  making  an 
other  trial  at  life.  Having  met  many  defeats  she 
would  have  been  armed  and  ready  for  defeat.  Like 
a  little  animal  in  a  forest  inhabited  by  other  and 

291 


292  MARCHING  MEN 

larger  animals  she  would  have  known  the  effective 
ness  of  lying  perfectly  still  for  a  long  period,  mak 
ing  her  patience  a  part  of  her  equipment  for  living. 

Margaret  had  decided  that  she  hated  McGregor. 
After  the  scene  in  her  house  she  gave  up  her  work  in 
the  settlement  house  and  for  a  long  time  went  about 
nursing  her  hatred.  In  the  street  as  she  walked 
about  her  mind  kept  bringing  accusations  against 
him  and  in  her  room  at  night  she  sat  by  the  window 
looking  at  the  stars  and  said  strong  words.  "He  is 
a  brute,"  she  declared  hotly,  "a  mere  animal  un 
touched  by  the  culture  that  makes  for  gentleness. 
There  is  something  animal-like  and  horrible  in  my 
nature  that  has  made  me  care  for  him.  I  shall 
pluck  it  out.  In  the  future  I  shall  make  it  my  busi 
ness  to  forget  the  man  and  all  of  the  dreadful  lower 
strata  of  life  that  he  represents." 

Filled  with  this  idea  Margaret  went  about  among 
her  own  people  and  tried  to  become  interested  in 
the  men  and  women  she  met  at  dinners  and  recep 
tions.  It  did  not  work  and  when,  after  a  few  eve 
nings  spent  in  the  company  of  men  absorbed  in  the 
getting  of  money,  she  found  them  only  dull  crea 
tures  whose  mouths  were  filled  with  meaningless 
words,  her  irritation  grew  and  she  blamed  McGregor 
for  that  also.  "He  had  no  right  to  come  into  my 
consciousness  and  then  take  himself  off,"  she  de 
clared  bitterly.  "The  man  is  more  of  a  brute  than  I 
thought.  He  no  doubt  preys  upon  everyone  as  he 


MARCHING  MEN  293 

has  preyed  upon  me.  He  is  without  tenderness, 
knows  nothing  of  the  meaning  of  tenderness.  The 
colourless  creature  he  has  married  will  serve  his 
body.  That  is  what  he  wants.  He  does  not  want 
beauty.  He  is  a  coward  who  dare  not  stand  up  to 
beauty  and  is  afraid  of  me." 

When  the  Marching  Men  Movement  began  to 
make  a  stir  in  Chicago  Margaret  went  on  a  visit  to 
New  York.  For  a  month  she  lived  with  two 
women  friends  at  a  big  hotel  near  the  sea  and  then 
hurried  home.  "I  will  see  the  man  and  hear  him 
talk,"  she  told  herself.  "I  cannot  cure  myself  of 
the  consciousness  of  him  by  running  away.  Per 
haps*  I  am  myself  a  coward.  I  shall  go  into  his 
presence.  When  I  hear  his  brutal  words  and  see 
again  the  hard  gleam  that  sometimes  comes  into  his 
eyes  I  shall  be  cured." 

Margaret  went  to  hear  McGregor  talk  to  a  gath 
ering  of  workingmen  in  a  West  Side  hall  and  came 
away  more  alive  to  him  than  ever.  In  the  hall  she 
sat  concealed  in  deep  shadows  by  the  door  and 
waited  with  trembling  eagerness. 

On  all  sides  of  her  were  men  crowded  together. 
Their  faces  were  washed  but  the  grime  of  the  shops 
was  not  quite  effaced.  Men  from  the  steel  mills 
with  the  cooked  look  that  follows  long  exposure  to 
intense  artificial  heat,  men  of  the  building  trades 
with  their  broad  hands,  big  men  and  small  men,  mis- 


294  MARCHING  MEN 

shapen  and  straight,  labouring  men,  all  sat  at  at 
tention,  waiting. 

Margaret  noticed  that  as  McGregor  talked  the 
lips  of  the  working  men  moved.  Fists  were 
clenched.  Applause  came  quick  and  sharp  like  the 
report  of  guns. 

In  the  shadows  at  the  further  side  of  the  hall  the 
black  coats  of  the  workers  made  a  blot  out  of 
which  intense  faces  looked  and  across  which  the 
flickering  gas  jets  in  the  centre  of  the  hall  threw 
dancing  lights. 

The  words  of  the  speaker  were  shot  forth.  The 
sentences  seemed  broken  and  disconnected.  As  he 
talked  giant  pictures  flashed  through  the  minds  of 
the  hearers.  Men  felt  themselves  big  and  exalted. 
A  little  steel  worker  sitting  near  Margaret,  who 
earlier  in  the  evening  had  been  abused  by  his  wife 
because  he  wanted  to  come  to  the  meeting  instead  of 
helping  with  the  dishes  at  home,  stared  fiercely 
about.  He  thought  he  would  like  to  fight  hand  in 
hand  with  a  wild  animal  in  a  forest. 

Standing  on  the  narrow  stage  McGregor  seemed 
a  giant  seeking  expression.  His  mouth  worked, 
the  sweat  stood  upon  his  forehead  and  he  moved 
restlessly  up  and  down.  At  times,  with  his  hands 
advanced  and  with  the  eager  forward  crouch  of 
his  body,  he  was  like  a  wrestler  waiting  to  grapple 
with  an  opponent. 

Margaret  was  deeply  moved.    Her  years  of  train- 


MARCHING  MEN  295 

ing  and  of  refinement  were  stripped  off  and  she 
felt  that,  like  the  women  of  the  French  Revolution, 
she  would  like  to  go  out  into  the  streets  and  march 
screaming  and  fighting  in  feminine  rage  for  the 
things  of  this  man's  mind. 

McGregor  had  scarcely  begun  to  talk.  His  per 
sonality,  the  big  eager  something  in  him,  had  caught 
and  held  this  audience  as  it  had  caught  and  held 
other  audiences  in  other  halls  and  was  to  hold  them 
night  after  night  for  months. 

McGregor  was  something  the  men  to  whom  he 
talked  understood.  He  was  themselves  become  ex 
pressive  and  he  moved  them  as  no  other  leader  had 
ever  moved  them  before.  His  very  lack  of  glibness, 
the  things  in  him  wanting  expression  and  not  get 
ting  expressed,  made  him  seem  like  one  of  them. 
He  did  not  confuse  their  minds  but  drew  for  them 
great  scrawling  pictures  and  to  them  he  cried, 
"March!"  and  for  marching  he  promised  them  re 
alisation  of  themselves. 

"I  have  heard  men  in  colleges  and  speakers  in 
halls  talk  of  the  brotherhood  of  man,"  he  cried. 
"They  do  not  want  such  a  brotherhood.  They 
would  flee  before  it.  But  we  will  make  by  our 
marching  such  a  brotherhood  that  they  will  tremble 
and  say  to  one  another,  'See,  Old  Labour  is  awake. 
He  has  found  his  strength.'  They  will  hide  them 
selves  and  eat  their  words  of  brotherhood. 

"A  clamour  of  voices  will  arise,  many  voices,  cry- 


296  MARCHING  MEN 

ing  out,  'Disperse!  Cease  marching!  I  am 
afraid!' 

"This  talk  of  brotherhood.  The  words  mean 
nothing.  Man  cannot  love  man.  We  do  not  know 
what  they  mean  by  such  love.  They  hurt  us  and 
underpay  us.  Sometimes  one  of  us  gets  an  arm 
torn  off.  Are  we  to  lie  in  our  beds  loving  the  man 
who  gets  rich  from  the  iron  machine  that  ripped  the 
arm  from  the  shoulder  ? 

"On  our  knees  and  in  our  arms  we  have  borne 
their  children.  On  the  streets  we  see  them — the 
petted  children  of  our  madness.  See  we  have  let 
them  run  about  misbehaving.  We  have  given  them 
automobiles  and  wives  with  soft  clinging  dresses. 
When  they  have  cried  we  have  cared  for  them. 

"And  they  being  children  with  the  minds  of  chil 
dren  are  confused.  The  noise  of  affairs  alarms 
them.  They  run  about  shaking  their  fingers  and 
commanding.  They  speak  with  pity  of  us — Labour 
— their  father. 

"And  now  we  will  show  them  their  father  in  his 
might.  The  little  machines  they  have  in  their  fac 
tories  are  toys  we  have  given  them  and  that  for  the 
time  we  leave  in  their  hands.  We  do  not  think  of 
the  toys  nor  the  soft-bodied  women.  We  make  of 
ourselves  a  mighty  army,  a  marching  army  going 
along  shoulder  to  shoulder.  We  can  love  that. 

"When  they  see  us,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  us, 
marching  into  their  minds  and  into  their  conscious- 


MARCHING  MEN  297 

ness,  then  will  they  be  afraid.  And  at  the  little 
meetings  they  have  when  three  or  four  of  them  sit 
talking,  daring  to  decide  what  things  we  shall  have 
from  life,  there  will  be  in  their  minds  a  picture. 
We  will  stamp  it  there. 

"They  have  forgotten  our  power.  Let  us  re 
awaken  it.  See,  I  shake  Old  Labour  by  the  shoul 
der.  He  arouses.  He  sits  up.  He  thrusts  his  huge 
form  up  from  where  he  was  asleep  in  the  dust  and 
the  smoke  of  the  mills.  They  look  at  him  and  are 
afraid.  See,  they  tremble  and  run  away,  falling 
over  each  other.  The  did  not  know  Old  Labour 
was  so  big. 

"But  you  workers  are  not  afraid.  You  are  the 
arms  and  the  legs  and  the  hands  and  the  eyes  of 
Labour.  You  have  thought  yourself  small.  You 
have  not  got  yourself  into  one  mass  so  that  I  could 
shake  and  arouse  you. 

"You  must  get  that  way.  You  must  march 
shoulder  to  shoulder.  You  must  march  so  that  you 
yourselves  shall  come  to  know  what  a  giant  you  are. 
If  one  of  your  number  whines  or  complains  or 
stands  upon  a  box  throwing  words  about  knock 
him  down  and  keep  marching. 

"When  you  have  marched  until  you  are  one  giant 
body  then  will  happen  a  miracle.  A  brain  will  grow 
in  the  giant  you  have  made. 

"Will  you  march  with  me?" 

Like  a  volley  from  a  battery  of  guns  came  the 


298  MARCHING  MEN 

sharp  reply  from  the  eager  upturned  faces  of  the 
audience.  "We  will !  Let  us  march !"  they  shouted. 

Margaret  Ormsby  went  out  at  the  door  and  into 
the  crowds  on  Madison  Street.  As  she  walked  in 
the  press  she  lifted  her  head  in  pride  that  a  man 
possessed  of  such  a  brain  and  of  the  simple  courage 
to  try  to  express  such  magnificent  ideas  through 
human  beings  had  ever  shown  favour  toward  her. 
Humbleness  swept  over  her  and  she  blamed  herself 
for  the  petty  thoughts  concerning  him  that  had  been 
in  her  mind.  "It  does  not  matter,"  she  whispered  to 
herself.  "Now  I  know  that  nothing  matters,  noth 
ing  but  his  success.  He  must  do  this  thing  he  has 
set  out  to  do.  He  must  not  be  denied.  I  would 
give  the  blood  out  of  my  body  or  expose  my  body  to 
shame  if  that  could  bring  him  success." 

Margaret  became  exalted  in  her  humbleness. 
When  her  carriage  had  taken  her  to  her  house  she 
ran  quickly  upstairs  to  her  own  room  and  knelt  by 
her  bed.  She  started  to  pray  but  presently  stopped 
and  sprang  to  her  feet.  Running  to  the  window 
she  looked  off  across  the  city.  "He  must  succeed," 
she  cried  again.  "I  shall  myself  be  one  of  his 
marchers.  I  will  do  anything  for  him.  He  is  tear 
ing  the  veil  from  my  eyes,  from  all  men's  eyes. 
We  are  children  in  the  hands  of  this  giant  and  he 
must  not  meet  defeat  at  the  hands  of  children." 


CHAPTER   II 

ON  the  day  of  the  great  demonstration,  when 
McGregor's  power  over  the  minds  and  the  bodies  of 
the  men  of  labour  sent  hundreds  of  thousands 
marching  and  singing  in  the  streets,  there  was  one 
man  who  was  untouched  by  the  song  of  labour  ex 
pressed  in  the  threshing  of  feet.  David  Ormsby 
had  in  his  quiet  way  thought  things  out.  He  ex 
pected  that  the  new  impetus  given  to  solidity  in  the 
ranks  of  labour  would  make  trouble  for  him  and 
his  kind,  that  it  would  express  itself  finally  in  strikes 
and  in  wide-spread  industrial  disturbance.  He  was 
not  worried.  In  the  end  he  thought  that  the  silent 
patient  power  of  money  would  bring  his  people  the 
victory.  On  that  day  he  did  not  go  to  his  office 
but  in  the  morning  stayed  in  his  own  room  think 
ing  of  McGregor  and  of  his  daughter.  Laura 
Ormsby  was  out  of  the  city  but  Margaret  was  at 
home.  David  believed  he  had  measured  accurately 
the  power  of  McGregor  over  her  mind  but  occa 
sional  doubts  came  to  him.  "Well  the  time  has 
come  to  have  it  out  with  her,"  he  decided.  "I  must 
reassert  my  ascendency  over  her  mind.  The  thing 
that  is  going  on  here  is  really  a  struggle  of  minds. 

299 


300  MARCHING  MEN 

McGregor  differs  from  other  leaders  of  labour  as  I 
differ  from  most  leaders  of  the  forces  of  money. 
He  has  brains.  Very  well.  I  shall  meet  him  on 
that  level.  Then,  when  I  have  made  Margaret 
think  as  I  think,  she  will  return  to  me." 

When  he  was  still  a  small  manufacturer  in  the 
Wisconsin  town  David  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
driving  out  in  the  evening  with  his  daughter.  Dur 
ing  the  drives  he  had  been  almost  a  lover  in  his  at 
tentions  to  the  child  and  now  when  he  thought  of 
the  forces  at  work  within  her  he  was  convinced  that 
she  was  still  a  child.  Early  in  the  afternoon  he  had 
a  carriage  brought  to  the  door  and  drove  off  with 
her  to  the  city.  "She  will  want  to  see  the  man  in 
the  height  of  his  power.  If  I  am  right  in  thinking 
that  she  is  still  under  the  influence  of  his  personal 
ity  there  will  be  a  romantic  desire  for  that. 

"I  will  give  her  the  chance,"  he  thought  proudly. 
"In  this  struggle  I  ask  no  quarter  from  him  and 
shall  not  make  the  common  mistake  of  parents  in 
such  cases.  She  is  fascinated  by  the  figure  he  has 
made  of  himself.  Showy  men  who  stand  out  from 
the  crowd  have  that  power.  She  is  still  under  his 
influence.  Why  else  her  constant  distraction  and 
her  want  of  interest  in  other  things?  Now  I  will 
be  with  her  when  the  man  is  most  powerful,  when 
he  shows  to  the  greatest  advantage,  and  then  I  will 
make  my  fight  for  her.  I  will  point  out  to  her  an- 


MARCHING  MEN  301 

other  road,  the  road  along  which  the  real  victors 
in  life  must  learn  to  travel." 

Together  David  the  quiet  efficient  representative 
of  wealth  and  his  woman  child  sat  in  the  carriage 
on  the  day  of  McGregor's  triumph.  For  the  mo 
ment  an  impassable  gulf  seemed  to  separate  them 
and  with  intense  eyes  each  watched  the  hordes  of 
men  who  massed  themselves  about  the  labour  leader. 
At  the  moment  McGregor  seemed  to  have  caught 
all  men  in  the  sweep  of  his  movement.  Business 
men  had  closed  their  desks,  labour  was  exultant, 
writers  and  men  given  to  speculation  in  thought 
walked  about  dreaming  of  the  realisation  of  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  In  the  long  narrow  treeless 
park  the  music  made  by  the  steady  never-ending 
thresh  of  feet  arose  to  something  vast  and  rhyth 
mical.  It  was  like  a  mighty  chorus  come  up  out  of 
the  hearts  of  men.  David  was  unmoved.  Occa 
sionally  he  spoke  to  the  horses  and  looked  from  the 
faces  of  the  men  massed  about  him  to  his  daughter's 
face.  In  the  coarse  faces  of  the  men  he  thought 
he  saw  only  a  crude  sort  of  intoxication,  the  result 
of  a  new  kind  of  emotionalism.  "It  will  not  out 
last  thirty  days  of  ordinary  living  in  their  squalid 
surroundings,"  he  thought  grimly.  "It  is  not  the 
kind  of  exaltation  for  Margaret.  I  can  sing  her  a 
more  wonderful  song.  I  must  get  myself  ready 
for  that." 

When  McGregor  arose  to  speak  Margaret  was 


302  MARCHING  MEN 

overcome  with  emotions.  Dropping  to  her  knees  in 
the  carriage  she  put  her  head  down  upon  her  father's 
arm.  For  days  she  had  been  telling  herself  that  in 
the  future  of  the  man  she  loved  there  was  no  place 
for  failure.  Now  again  she  whispered  to  herself 
that  this  great  sturdy  figure  must  not  be  denied  the 
fulfilment  of  its  purpose.  When  in  the  hush  that 
followed  the  massing  of  the  labourers  about  him 
the  harsh  booming  voice  floated  over  the  heads  of 
the  people  her  body  shook  as  with  a  chill.  Extrava 
gant  fancies  invaded  her  mind  and  she  wished  it 
were  possible  for  her  to  do  something  heroic,  some 
thing  that  would  make  her  live  again  in  the  mind  of 
McGregor.  She  wanted  to  serve  him,  to  give  him 
something  out  of  herself,  and  thought  wildly  that 
there  might  yet  come  a  time  and  a  way  by  which  the 
beauty  of  her  body  could  be  laid  like  a  gift  before 
him.  The  half  mythical  figure  of  Mary  the  lover 
of  Jesus  came  into  her  mind  and  she  aspired  to  be 
such  another.  With  her  body  shaken  with  emo 
tions  she  pulled  at  the  sleeve  of  her  father's  coat. 
"Listen !  It  is  going  to  come  now,"  she  murmured. 
"The  brain  of  labour  is  going  to  express  the  dream 
of  labour.  An  impulse  sweet  and  lasting  is  going 
to  come  into  the  world." 

David  Ormsby  said  nothing.  When  McGregor 
had  begun  to  speak  he  touched  the  horses  with  the 
whip  and  drove  slowly  along  Van  Buren  Street 


MARCHING  MEN  303 

past  the  silent  attentive  ranks  of  men.  When  he 
had  got  into  one  of  the  streets  near  the  river  a  vast 
cheer  arose.  It  seemed  to  shake  the  city  and  the 
horses  reared  and  leaped  forward  over  the  rough 
cobblestones.  With  one  hand  David  quieted  them 
while  with  the  other  he  gripped  the  hand  of  his 
daughter.  They  drove  over  a  bridge  and  into  the 
West  Side  and  as  they  went  the  marching  song  of 
the  workers  rising  up  out  of  thousands  of  throats 
rang  in  their  ears.  For  a  time  the  air  seemed  to 
pulsate  with  it  but  as  they  went  westward  it  grew 
continually  less  and  less  distinct.  At  last  when 
they  had  turned  into  a  street  lined  by  tall  factories 
it  died  out  altogether.  "That  is  the  end  of  him  for 
me  and  mine,"  thought  David  and  again  set  himself 
for  the  task  he  had  to  perform. 

Through  street  after  street  David  let  the  horses 
wander  while  he  clung  to  his  daughter's  hand  and 
thought  of  what  he  wanted  to  say.  Not  all  of  the 
streets  were  lined  with  factories.  Some,  and  these 
in  the  evening  light  were  the  most  hideous,  were 
bordered  by  the  homes  of  workers.  The  houses 
of  the  workers,  jammed  closely  together  and  black 
with  grime,  were  filled  with  noisy  life.  Women  sat 
in  the  doorways  and  children  ran  screaming  and 
shouting  in  the  road.  Dogs  barked  and  howled. 
Everywhere  was  dirt  and  disorder,  the  terrible  evi 
dence  of  men's  failure  in  the  difficult  and  delicate 
art  of  living.  In  one  of  the  streets  a  little  girl 


304  MARCHING  MEN 

child  who  sat  on  the  post  of  a  fence  made  a  ludi 
crous  figure.  As  David  and  Margaret  drove  past 
she  beat  with  her  heels  against  the  sides  of  the  post 
and  screamed.  Tears  ran  down  her  cheeks  and  her 
dishevelled  hair  was  black  with  dirt.  "I  want  a 
banana!  I  want  a  banana!"  she  howled,  staring  at 
the  blank  walls  of  one  of  the  houses.  In  spite  of 
herself  Margaret  was  touched  and  her  mind  left 
the  figure  of  McGregor.  By  an  odd  chance  the 
child  on  the  post  was  the  daughter  of  that  socialist 
orator  who  one  night  on  the  North  Side  had  climbed 
upon  a  platform  to  confront  McGregor  with  the 
propaganda  of  the  Socialist  Party. 

David  turned  the  horses  into  a  wide  boulevard 
that  ran  south  through  the  factory  district  of  the 
west.  As  they  came  out  into  the  boulevard  they 
saw  sitting  on  the  sidewalk  before  a  saloon  a 
drunkard  with  a  drum  in  his  hand.  The  drunkard 
beat  upon  the  drum  and  tried  to  sing  the  marching 
song  of  the  workers  but  succeeded  only  in  making 
a  queer  grunting  noise  like  a  distressed  animal. 
The  sight  brought  a  smile  to  David's  lips.  "Al 
ready  it  has  begun  to  disintegrate,"  he  muttered. 
"I  brought  you  into  this  part  of  town  on  purpose," 
he  said  to  Margaret.  "I  wanted  you  to  see  with 
your  own  eyes  how  much  the  world  needs  the  thing 
he  is  trying  to  do.  The  man  is  terribly  right  about 
the  need  for  discipline  and  order.  He  is  a  big  man 
doing  a  big  thing  and  I  admire  his  courage.  He 


MARCHING  MEN  305 

would  be  a  really  big  man  had  he  the  greater 
courage." 

On  the  boulevard  into  which  they  had  turned  all 
was  quiet.  The  summer  sun  was  setting  and  over 
the  roofs  of  buildings  the  west  was  ablaze  with 
light.  They  passed  a  factory  surrounded  by  little 
patches  of  garden.  Some  employer  of  labour  had 
tried  thus  feebly  to  bring  beauty  into  the  neighbour 
hood  of  the  place  where  his  men  worked.  David 
pointed  with  the  whip.  "Life  is  a  husk,"  he  said, 
"and  we  men  of  affairs  who  take  ourselves  so  seri 
ously  because  the  fates  have  been  good  to  us  have 
odd  silly  little  fancies.  See  what  this  fellow  has 
been  at,  patching  away,  striving  to  create  beauty 
on  the  shell  of  things.  He  is  like  McGregor  you 
see.  I  wonder  if  the  man  has  made  himself  beauti 
ful,  if  either  he  or  McGregor  has  seen  to  it  that 
there  is  something  lovely  inside  the  husk  he  wears 
around  and  that  he  calls  his  body,  if  he  has  seen 
through  life  to  the  spirit  of  life.  I  do  not  believe 
in  patching  nor  do  I  believe  in  disturbing  the  shell 
of  things  as  McGregor  has  dared  to  do.  I  have 
my  own  beliefs  and  they  are  the  beliefs  of  my  kind. 
This  man  here,  this  maker  of  little  gardens,  is  like 
McGregor.  He  might  better  let  men  find  their  own 
beauty.  That  is  my  way.  I  have,  I  want  to  think, 
kept  myself  for  the  sweeter  and  more  daring  effort." 

David  turned  and  looked  hard  at  Margaret  who 
had  begun  to  be  influenced  by  his  mood.  She 


306  MARCHING  MEN 

waited,  looking  with  averted  face  at  the  sky  over 
the  roofs  of  buildings.  David  began  to  talk  of 
himself  in  relation  to  her  and  her  mother.  A  note 
of  impatience  came  into  his  voice. 

"How  far  you  have  been  carried  away,  haven't 
you?"  he  said  sharply.  "Listen.  I  am  not  talking 
to  you  now  as  your  father  nor  as  Laura's  daughter. 
Let  us  be  clear  about  that  I  love  you  and  am  in  a 
contest  to  win  your  love.  I  am  McGregor's  rival. 
I  accept  the  handicap  of  fatherhood.  I  love  you. 
You  see  I  have  let  something  within  myself  alight 
upon  you.  McGregor  has  not  done  that.  He  re 
fused  what  you  had  to  offer  but  I  do  not  I  have 
centred  my  life  upon  you  and  have  done  it  quite 
knowingly  and  after  much  thought.  The  feeling  I 
have  is  something  quite  special.  I  am  an  individual 
ist  but  believe  in  the  oneness  of  man  and  woman. 
I  would  dare  venture  into  but  one  other  life  beyond 
my  own  and  that  the  life  of  a  woman.  I  have 
chosen  to  ask  you  to  let  me  venture  so  into  your 
life.  We  will  talk  of  it." 

Margaret  turned  and  looked  at  her  father.  Later 
she  thought  that  some  strange  phenomena  must  have 
happened  at  the  moment.  Something  like  a  film  was 
torn  from  her  eyes  and  she  saw  the  man  David,  not 
as  a  shrewd  and  calculating  man  of  affairs,  but  as 
something  magnificently  young.  Not  only  was  he 
strong  and  solid  but  in  his  face  there  was  at  the 
moment  the  deep  lines  of  thought  and  suffering 


MARCHING  MEN  307 

she  had  seen  on  the  countenance  of  McGregor.  "It 
is  strange,"  she  thought.  "They  are  so  unlike  and 
yet  the  two  men  are  both  beautiful." 

"I  married  your  mother  when  I  was  a  child  as 
you  are  a  child  now,"  David  went  on.  "To  be  sure 
I  had  a  passion  for  her  and  she  had  one  for  me.  It 
passed  but  it  was  beautiful  enough  while  it  lasted. 
It  did  not  have  depth  or  meaning.  I  want  to  tell 
you  why.  Then  I  am  going  to  make  you  understand 
McGregor  so  that  you  may  take  your  measure  of 
the  man.  I  am  coming  to  that.  I  have  to  begin  at 
the  beginning. 

"My  factory  began  to  grow  and  as  an  employer 
of  labour  I  became  concerned  in  the  lives  of  a  good 
many  men." 

His  voice  again  became  sharp.  "I  have  been  im 
patient  with  you,"  he  said.  "Do  you  think  this  Mc 
Gregor  is  the  only  man  who  has  seen  and  thought 
of  other  men  in  the  mass?  I  have  done  that  and 
have  been  tempted.  I  also  might  have  become  senti 
mental  and  destroyed  myself.  I  did  not.  Loving  a 
woman  saved  me.  Laura  did  that  for  me  although 
when  it  came  to  the  real  test  of  our  love,  under 
standing,  she  failed.  I  am  nevertheless  grateful  to 
her  that  she  was  once  the  object  of  my  love.  I  be 
lieve  in  the  beauty  of  that." 

Again  David  paused  and  began  to  tell  his  story 
in  a  new  way.  The  figure  of  McGregor  came  back 
into  Margaret's  mind  and  her  father  began  to  feel 


308  MARCHING  MEN 

that  to  take  it  entirely  away  would  be  an  accom 
plishment  full  of  significance.  "If  I  can  take  her 
from  him,  I  and  my  kind  can  take  the  world  from 
him  also,"  he  thought.  "It  will  be  another  victory 
for  the  aristocracy  in  the  never-ending  battle  with 
the  mob." 

"I  came  to  a  turning  point,"  he  said  aloud.  "All 
men  come  to  that  point.  To  be  sure  the  great  mass 
of  people  drift  quite  stupidly  but  we  are  not  now 
talking  of  people  in  general  There  is  you  and  me 
and  there  is  the  thing  McGregor  might  be.  We  are 
each  in  our  way  something  special.  We  come,  peo 
ple  like  us,  to  a  place  where  there  are  two  roads  to 
take.  I  took  one  and  McGregor  has  taken  another. 
I  know  why  and  perhaps  he  knows  why.  I  concede 
to  him  knowledge  of  what  he  has  done.  But  now  it 
is  time  for  you  to  decide  which  road  you  will  take. 
You  have  seen  the  crowds  moving  along  the  broad 
way  he  has  chosen  and  now  you  will  set  out  on  your 
own  way.  I  want  you  to  look  down  my  road  with 
me." 

They  came  to  a  bridge  over  a  canal  and  David 
stopped  the  horses.  A  body  of  McGregor's  march 
ers  passed  and  Margaret's  pulse  began  to  beat  high 
again.  When  she  looked  at  her  father  however 
he  was  unmoved  and  she  was  a  little  ashamed  of 
her  emotions.  For  a  moment  David  waited,  as 
though  for  inspiration,  and  when  the  horses  started 
on  again  he  began  to  talk.  "A  labour  leader  came 


MARCHING  MEN  309 

to  my  factory,  a  miniature  McGregor  with  a 
crooked  twist  to  him.  He  was  a  rascal  but  the 
things  he  said  to  my  men  were  all  true  enough.  I 
was  making  money  for  my  investors,  a  lot  of  it. 
They  might  have  won  in  a  fight  with  me.  One 
evening  I  went  out  into  the  country  to  walk  alone 
under  the  trees  and  think  it  over." 

David's  voice  became  harsh  and  Margaret  thought 
it  had  become  strangely  like  the  voice  of  McGregor 
talking  to  workingmen.  "I  bought  the  man  off," 
David  said.  "I  used  the  cruel  weapon  men  like  me 
have  to  use.  I  gave  him  money  and  told  him  to  get 
out,  to  let  me  alone.  I  did  it  because  I  had  to  win. 
My  kind  of  men  always  have  to  win.  During  the 
walk  I  took  alone  I  got  hold  of  my  dream,  my  be 
lief.  I  have  the  same  dream  now.  It  means  more 
to  me  than  the  welfare  of  a  million  men.  For  it  I 
would  crush  whatever  opposed  me.  I  am  going  to 
tell  you  of  the  dream. 

"It  is  too  bad  one  has  to  talk.  Talk  kills  dreams 
and  talk  will  also  kill  all  such  men  as  McGregor. 
Now  that  he  has  begun  to  talk  we  will  get  the  best 
of  him.  I  do  not  worry  about  McGregor.  Time 
and  talk  will  bring  about  his  destruction." 

David's  mind  ran  off  in  a  new  direction.  "I  do 
not  think  a  man's  life  is  of  much  importance,"  he 
said.  "No  man  is  big  enough  to  grasp  all  of  life. 
That  is  the  foolish  fancy  of  children.  The  grown 
man  knows  he  cannot  see  life  at  one  great  sweep. 


310  MARCHING  MEN 

It  cannot  be  comprehended  so.  One  has  to  realise 
that  he  lives  in  a  patchwork  of  many  lives  and  many 
impulses. 

"The  man  must  strike  at  beauty.  That  is  the 
realisation  maturity  brings  and  that  is  where  the 
woman  comes  in.  That  is  what  McGregor  was  not 
wise  enough  to  understand.  He  is  a  child  you  see 
in  a  land  of  excitable  children." 

The  quality  of  David's  voice  changed.  Putting 
his  arm  about  his  daughter  he  drew  her  face  down 
beside  his  own.  Night  descended  upon  them.  The 
woman  who  was  tired  from  much  thinking  began 
to  feel  grateful  for  the  touch  of  the  strong  hand  on 
her  shoulder.  David  had  accomplished  his  pur 
pose.  He  had  for  the  moment  made  his  daughter 
forget  that  she  was  his  daughter.  There  was  some 
thing  hypnotic  in  the  quiet  strength  of  his  mood. 

"I  come  now  to  women,  to  your  part,"  he  said. 
"We  will  talk  of  the  thing  I  want  to  make  you  un 
derstand.  Laura  failed  as  the  woman.  She  never 
saw  the  point.  As  I  grew  she  did  not  grow  with 
me.  Because  I  did  not  talk  of  love  she  did  not 
understand  me  as  a  lover,  did  not  know  what  I 
wanted,  what  I  demanded  of  her. 

"I  wanted  to  fit  my  love  down  upon  her  figure 
as  one  puts  a  glove  on  his  hand.  You  see  I  was  the 
adventurer,  the  man  mussed  and  moiled  by  life  and 
its  problems.  The  struggle  to  exist,  to  get  money, 
could  not  be  avoided.  I  had  to  make  that  struggle. 


MARCHING  MEN  311 

She  did  not.  Why  could  she  not  understand  that  I 
did  not  want  to  come  into  her  presence  to  rest  or  to 
say  empty  words.  I  wanted  her  to  help  me  create 
beauty.  We  should  have  been  partners  in  that. 
Together  we  should  have  undertaken  the  most  deli 
cate  and  difficult  of  all  struggles,  the  struggle  for 
living  beauty  in  our  everyday  affairs." 

Bitterness  swept  over  the  old  ploughmaker  and 
he  used  strong  words.  "The  whole  point  is  in  what 
I  am  now  saying.  That  was  my  cry  to  the  woman. 
It  came  out  of  my  soul.  It  was  the  only  cry  to 
another  I  have  ever  made.  Laura  was  a  little  fool. 
Her  mind  flitted  away  to  little  things.  I  do  not 
know  what  she  wanted  me  to  be  and  now  I  do  not 
care.  Perhaps  she  wanted  me  to  be  a  poet,  a 
stringer  together  of  words,  one  to  write  shrill  little 
songs  about  her  eyes  and  lips.  It  does  not  matter 
now  what  she  wanted. 

"But  you  matter." 

David's  voice  cut  through  the  fog  of  new 
thoughts  that  were  confusing  his  daughter's  mind 
and  she  could  feel  his  body  stiffen.  A  thrill  ran 
through  her  own  body  and  she  forgot  McGregor. 
With  all  the  strength  of  her  spirit  she  was  absorbed 
in  what  David  was  saying.  In  the  challenge  that 
was  coming  from  the  lips  of  her  father  she  began 
to  feel  there  would  be  born  in  her  own  life  a  definite 
purpose. 

"Women  want  to  push  out  into  life,  to  share  with 


312  MARCHING  MEN 

men  the  disorder  and  mussiness  of  little  things. 
What  a  desire !  Let  them  try  it  if  they  wish.  They 
will  sicken  of  the  attempt.  They  lose  sight  of  some 
thing  bigger  they  might  undertake.  They  have  for 
gotten  the  old  things,  Ruth  in  the  corn  and  Mary 
with  the  jar  of  precious  ointment,  they  have  for 
gotten  the  beauty  they  were  meant  to  help  men 
create. 

"Let  them  share  only  in  man's  attempt  to  create 
beauty.  That  is  the  big,  the  delicate  task  to  which 
they  should  consecrate  themselves.  Why  attempt 
instead  the  cheaper,  the  secondary  task?  They  are 
like  this  McGregor." 

The  ploughmaker  became  silent.  Taking  up  the 
whip  he  drove  the  horses  rapidly  along.  He  thought 
that  his  point  was  made  and  was  satisfied  to  let  the 
imagination  of  his  daughter  do  the  rest.  They 
turned  off  the  boulevard  and  passed  through  a 
street  of  small  stores.  Before  a  saloon  a  troop  of 
street  urchins  led  by  a  drunken  man  without  a  hat 
gave  a  grotesque  imitation  of  McGregor's  Marchers 
before  a  crowd  of  laughing  idlers.  With  a  sinking 
heart  Margaret  realised  that  even  at  the  height  of 
his  power  the  forces  that  would  eventually  destroy 
the  impulses  back  of  McGregor's  Marchers  were  at 
work.  She  crept  closer  to  David.  "I  love  you," 
she  said.  "Some  day  I  may  have  a  lover  but  always 
I  shall  love  you.  I  shall  try  to  be  what  you  want 
of  me." 


MARCHING  MEN  313 

It  was  past  two  o'clock  that  night  when  David 
arose  from  the  chair  where  he  had  been  for  several 
hours  quietly  reading.  With  a  smile  on  his  face  he 
went  to  a  window  facing  north  toward  the  city. 
All  through  the  evening  groups  of  men  had  been 
passing  the  house.  Some  had  gone  scuffling  along, 
a  mere  disorderly  mob,  some  had  gone  shoulder  to 
shoulder  chanting  the  marching  song  of  the  workers 
and  a  few,  under  the  influence  of  drink,  had  stopped 
before  the  house  to  roar  out  threats.  Now  all  was 
quiet  David  lighted  a  cigar  and  stood  for  a  long 
time  looking  out  over  the  city.  He  was  thinking  of 
McGregor  and  wondering  what  excited  dream  of 
power  the  day  had  brought  into  the  man's  head. 
Then  he  thought  of  his  daughter  and  of  her  escape. 
A  soft  light  came  into  his  eyes.  He  was  happy  but 
when  he  had  partially  undressed  a  new  mood  came 
and  he  turned  out  the  lights  in  the  room  and  went 
again  to  the  window.  In  the  room  above  Margaret 
had  been  unable  to  sleep  and  had  also  crept  to  the 
window.  She  was  thinking  again  of  McGregor  and 
was  ashamed  of  her  thoughts.  By  chance  both 
father  and  daughter  began  at  the  same  moment  to 
doubt  the  truth  of  what  David  had  said  during  the 
drive  along  the  boulevard.  Margaret  could  not  ex 
press  her  doubts  in  words  but  tears  came  into  her 
eyes. 

As  for  David,  he  put  his  hand  on  the  sill  of  the 
window  and  for  just  a  moment  his  body  trembled  as 


314  MARCHING  MEN 

with  age  and  weariness.  "I  wonder,"  he  muttered 
— "if  I  had  youth — perhaps  McGregor  knew  he 
would  fail  and  yet  had  the  courage  of  failure.  I 
wonder  if  both  Margaret  and  myself  lack  the 
greater  courage,  if  that  evening  long  ago  when  I 
walked  under  the  trees  I  made  a  mistake?  What  if 
after  all  this  McGregor  and  his  woman  knew  both 
roads.  What  if  they,  after  looking  deliberately 
along  the  road  toward  success  in  life,  went  without 
regret  along  the  road  to  failure?  What  if  McGregor 
and  not  myself  knew  the  road  to  beauty  ?" 


END 


I 


Date  Due 


MAY  1  c 

1983 

mnl    J-  « 

, 

25  K9fl6 

ii 

nro  ^ 

Ol^RI 

1 

Ut.'-'  " 

t 

MAR  2 

I  1988  D  \ 

> 

i  j 

C  HAY  2 

9  1988 

R 

*^W    ^ 

Library  Bureau  Cat.  No.  1137 

1166    9 


JNIVE 


00582  8148 


